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<br /> M3 1:)y6 Page 2 of 16 <br /> <br /> <br /> HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 1598 <br /> TWENTY-FOURTH LEGISLATURE, 2007 H .B . NO. <br /> STATE OF HAWAII <br /> <br /> <br /> A BILL FOR AN ACT <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> RELATING TO HEALTHCARE. <br /> <br /> <br /> BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII: <br /> <br /> <br /> SECTION 1. The legislature finds that it is in the best <br /> <br /> interest of the State of Hawaii for each and every permanent resident <br /> <br /> to have high quality and affordable healthcare insurance coverage. <br /> <br /> Healthcare is more than just medical insurance payouts. It includes <br /> cost-saving and early intervention measures to prevent medical <br /> <br /> conditions from becoming chronic, permanently disabling, or fatal. <br /> <br /> Hawaii's current healthcare insurance complex is a disjointed, <br /> <br /> costly, inefficient, and unnecessarily complicated multi-payer <br /> private medical insurance model that is mostly profit-driven, <br /> <br /> adversarial, beset with constant cost-shifting and reluctant <br /> <br /> healthcare delivery, onerously bureaucratic, and generally <br /> <br /> economically irrational. Additionally, healthcare rates are <br /> skyrocketing at or near double-digit annual rates and are creating an <br /> <br /> affordability and accessibility crisis for Hawaii's residents. <br /> <br /> The three biggest cost-drivers of healthcare in the United <br /> States and Hawaii today are associated with the following: <br /> <br /> (1) A profit-driven complex of payment-reluctant multi-payer <br /> <br /> health insurance bureaucracies competing to insure only the <br /> <br /> healthy and the wealthy, while leaving those who need <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2007/Bills/HB1598-.htm 1/9/2008 <br />