FOOTBALL STAR SET STANDARDS FOR ALL

Punahou all-star and professional football great Mosiula Tatupu's memory and guidance will live in eternity despite his unfortunate and early passing.

Mosi's unstoppable prow-ess on the field and unwavering 24k character off the field set the standard for Island athletes and shaped an era that helped put Hawai'i "on the map" in so many positive ways.

Although we share a heavy heart, we can hold our heads high.

tony costa | Honolulu

HEALTH CARE

OBAMA SHOULD PUSH LEGISLATION THROUGH

President Obama is trying to reach out to all people, especially the Republicans, the party of "No."

He can best do this by defying the Republican threat of a filibuster and presenting his legislation on health care, education, the budget, etc. to the Senate now.

What are the Democrats afraid of? Let the public, through Senate debate, see who is trying to thwart the will of the people. The filibuster can be used to effect a good compromise, which is badly needed to stop the partisanship that is wrecking our country. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

mark litchman | Honolulu

SYSTEM MUST HAVE A MAJOR OVERHAUL

As a family physician in practice for almost 30 years, I agree that our desperately unfair health insurance situation needs a major overhaul. Universal single-payer coverage, with no profit motive to guide medical decisions, would immediately reduce administrative costs currently paid to hundreds of competing for-profit insurance companies that drive us all crazy by cherry-picking only well patients to maximize their profits, denying pre-existing problems, requiring tedious paperwork and restricting pharmaceutical formularies.

With a single-payer plan, administrative costs, now about 25 percent, would fall to about 10 percent, thus freeing enough money to care for 50 million uninsured or underinsured Americans.

Expensive emergency rooms are used inappropriately, like after-hours clinics, where cost-shifting occurs to the insured from the uninsured — desperate folks, who often go bankrupt with huge unpaid medical bills. And we wonder why our premiums are going up. And why American business cannot compete in the global economy. The cost of big health benefits required by employers is far better borne by the government, as is sensibly done by all other modern industrialized countries.

The dishonest fear-mongering by entrenched, overpaid insurance company executives, and their multitudes of lobbyists, is crippling our desperately overdue reform.

Deborah Love, M.D. | Wahiawä

HAWAI'I HMA SUPPORTS CONCEPT

With the continuing debate concerning health care reform in Congress, it might be of interest to your readers to know of a resolution adopted at the Council of the Hawaii Medical Association in the fall of 2009.

The Hawaii Medical Association supports the concept of health care reform to increase health insurance coverage, protect the patient-physician relationship, improve quality and wellness, reform the Medicare payment system, implement medical liability reforms, and reduce administrative waste.

HMA resolves to reserve support of specific legislation until the following concerns are addressed: medical liability reform, commissions and committees that lead to limiting medical innovation, universal access, and factors that increase overall costs.

malcolm r. ing, M.D. | Member, Council of Hawaii Medical Association

ADVERTISER SALE

BEHIND IT ALL, MONEY IS THE REAL REASON

The reason given for the sale was in essence, "a very substantial and attractive offer" was made and "out of a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders," it will be sold.

Never mind that people have given their lives, on a daily basis for years, to make the paper a success. When I was a kid, the comment about a public company putting their shareholders before the workers would have been, "money talks, losers walk."

hesh goldstein | Honolulu

HAWAI'I FLAG FLOWN AT HALF-STAFF IRONIC

After the announcement of the sale of The Honolulu Advertiser, the next morning morning it seemed an ironic coincidence that the Hawai'i flag displayed to the right of the News Building entrance at 605 Kapi'olani Blvd. was at half-staff.

This latest event in the history of Hawai'i's chronicler perhaps deserves the gesture — albeit officially in memory of the late Honolulu Mayor Frank F. Fasi, who had his own long-running relationship with the newspaper — both to honor its distinguished past and signal a pause for reflection, even as the uncertain transition process has already begun for everyone in both the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin families.

I wish them well and look forward to the flag's eventual return to full-staff.

Tom Heinrich | Honolulu

RAIL TAX

NO OVERSIGHT SEEN FOR TRANSIT EXCISE TAX

How can the taxpayers on O'ahu get through the public relations firewall that surrounds the Hannemann administration's rail project?

What has caused the delay in the final EIS?

Why will it take months to finish the final EIS?

How much money is needed to fix the problem or problems?

Did the city make early mistakes that now have to be corrected?

There is no oversight built into the laws that allowed the Hannemann administration to tax us for 15 years. My family and yours will pay approximately $400 per year in transit excise tax for 12 more years. The city has spent more than $100 million on rail. Who exactly got the money? Was the money well spent?

Can't some government agency force the mayor to tell us how he is spending our taxes?

john brizdle | Pälolo Valley

SPECIAL ELECTION

RESIGNING EARLYSHOWS CHARACTER

There has been a lot of talk about the upcoming special election. Some have said that Neil Abercrombie should pay for the cost of the special election because he is resigning from Congress early and the Election Commission doesn't have the money to pay for it.

The fact is that the Election Commission doesn't have the finances to pay for the regular election either and that is not Neil's doing. It is due to mismanagement by our current government officials.

Neil Abercrombie is an honorable and conscientious citizen. He is resigning early because he does not think it is fair to the people of Hawai'i to take a check for representing Hawai'i in Congress when he will be here campaigning for governor.

Meanwhile, Mufi Hannemann is traveling to other islands setting up his campaign for governor.

Is this fair to the people of O'ahu? I say no.

John J. Scarry III | Honolulu