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November/December 2006
President's Message
By Rich Meiers, President and CEOAs we enter the holiday season and approach the end of 2006, I can report to you that your Association has had another successful year in so many ways. Whether it was working closely with the Legislature and the State administration to pass our legislative agenda or conducting superb educational programs for our hospitals, nursing homes and home care and hospice providers, 2006 was a good year!
As the year was drawing to a close we saw the elections bring many new faces to our State Legislature and the reelection of a very popular Republican Governor, Linda Lingle. We will also be working with new Chairs of the Health Committees in both the Democratically-controlled Senate and House.
Our health care family hopes that the Legislature and the Governor will work together to improve the health care status of Hawaii's citizens.
At the national level the elections saw the Democrats regain control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Some observations regarding the new Congress include:
a. In the House, Committee Chairs will now be much more powerful and will not necessarily take orders from their leadership.
b. The philosophy of "Pay as You Go" will now apply to taxes and spending.
c. The Republican block in the House will be even more conservative than in the last Congress.
d. But Senate Republicans and not House Republicans will now drive Republican issues.
e. Most major health care legislators in both the Senate and House did not lose their seats.
f. In the House the political power has moved away from the suburban areas to the urban areas.
g. Graduate Medical Education should do very well with Representative Rangel's and Senator Schumer's new positions in this Congress.
h. There is no chance there will be any type of medical liability reform.
i. Funding for SCHIP should easily pass.
j. With regards to the tax-exempt status of our facilities, we should see the focus move away from the Congress and towards the IRS.
k. We should see an emergence of labor issues, i.e. mandatory overtime, staffing ratios, etc., however there will be a Republican President to veto any onerous legislation.
In summary, we can expect to see either incremental change or total gridlock from this Congress.
On behalf of all of the members of the Association, I extend a special thank you to each member of the 2004-06 Board of Directors for their many hours of dedicated work in guiding our Association during the past two years.
Members of the Executive Committee, consisting of Tom Driskill (Chair), Susan Murray (Chair Elect), Fred Horowitz (Secretary/Chair), Tony Krieg (LTC Division Chair) and Emilie Smith (HCH Division Chair), are to be commended and particularly thanked for working very closely with the staff and me as they provided wise counsel and guidance throughout the two years. Your efforts were sincerely appreciated.
Along with the Board of Directors and the staff of the Healthcare Association, I wish each and every one of you a very Happy Holiday Season. Thank you for all your support throughout this year. We trust that 2007 will be a healthy and prosperous year for you, your family and all of our state!