[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 118 (Friday, August 19, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                   HAWAII--MANDATES IN PARADISE--NOT

  (Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous 
matter.)
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, Hawaii is often used as a model for success 
in employer-mandated health care.
  Contrary to popular opinion, the facts show there is trouble in 
paradise.
  Results of mandated health care in Hawaii are not generally known. 
For instance, NFIB reports that:
  Eighty percent of Hawaiians are covered under two main insurers.
  Ninety-five percent of physicians in Hawaii work for one of the two 
insurers and are therefore subject to managed care and imposed fee 
schedules.
  Dependents or unemployed persons and part-time workers are not 
covered.
  Health care costs in Hawaii have skyrocketed. Between 1980-90 costs 
rose by 191 percent, nationally that figure was 163 percent.
  The coalition for jobs and health care reports that Hawaii's employer 
mandates won't create a health care paradise for the rest of the 
country because:
  Hawaii's employer mandate has yet to achieve universal coverage or 
control costs.
  Hawaii led the Nation last year in small-business bankruptcies. And 
companies are exiting the State in record numbers.
  The employer mandate has created an administrative nightmare. It 
takes the island three times longer to administer health plans than it 
does on the mainland.
  This sounds more lie paradise lost to me.
  Mr. Speaker, the statistics I cited were provided by: National 
Federation of Independent Business, testimony before House Committee on 
Agriculture March 17, 1994; National Federation of Independent 
Business, statement by Jack Faris, president, NFIB, August 3, 1994; and 
the Coalition for Jobs and Health Care, August 11, 1994.

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