Our president's home state: Hawaii.
That's almost certainly a coincidence. But it's not fluke that, say, the death rates for breast cancer in the state of Hawaii are the lowest in America. Health care in Hawaii is efficient and generous. It's mandatory for employers.
Since 1974, Hawaii has required all employers to provide relatively generous health care benefits to any employee who works 20 hours a week or more. If health care legislation passes in Congress, the rest of the country may barely catch up.
Once Hawaii put its system in place, it's been virtually impossible to revoke or pare back.
But perhaps the most intriguing lesson from Hawaii has to do with costs. This is a state where regular milk sells for $8 a gallon, gasoline costs $3.60 a gallon and the median price of a home in 2008 was $624,000 — the second-highest in the nation. Despite this, Hawaii’s health insurance premiums are nearly tied with North Dakota for the lowest in the country, and Medicare costs per beneficiary are the nation’s lowest.
There's no trick involved. What comes out of this system is a healthier population because it has access to health care. Because there's less demand for intervention, there's more money in the system for innovation.
With nearly 90 percent of the populace given relatively generous benefits, patients stay healthy and health providers have the money and motivation to innovate.
Emergency rooms aren't overcrowded. People don't get (ask for?) as many costly tests.
So what are the negatives? For a start, increased unemployment during the recession has meant medical care is less accessible for those who have been laid off. And the state does have some problems with employers cheating on health care.
Still, Hawaii comes out on top when it comes to treating people well, medically and otherwise.
In interviews, leaders and employers in Hawaii referred with surprising earnestness to an “aloha spirit” and a sense of familial obligation known as ohana to justify providing care to nearly everyone.
In case a troll decides to comment derisively about Obama's home state rating just about the highest, it's as well to note that George W. Bush's state rates right down near the bottom. Surprise!
