Join the fight to end Alzheimer’s

More than 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, including nearly 29,000 in Hawaii. As an Alzheimer’s Association advocate, it is my honor to represent them.

As a family and professional caregiver for someone living with Alzheimer’s, I understand firsthand the impact this disease has on families across America.

I attended the Alzheimer’s Impact Movement (AIM) Advocacy Forum with my fellow Alzheimer’s advocates from across the country in March. We rallied outside the White House and met with Senator Schatz on Capitol Hill to call for a reversal of the administration’s decision to deny people living with Alzheimer’s access to Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs.

I urged Senator Schatz to show his support for full access to FDA-approved Alzheimer’s treatment. Every day without access to FDA-approved drugs, more than 2,000 people transition to a more advanced stage of Alzheimer’s, where they are no longer eligible for treatment.

In addition, I urged Senator Schatz to support the bipartisan Comprehensive Care for Alzheimer’s Act to create a more effective path to dementia care and address shortcomings in the way dementia care is currently delivered.

Lastly, I asked that he support a $321 million increase in research funding at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Alzheimer’s disease for Fiscal Year 2024.

I appreciate Senator Schatz for taking the time to listen to those of us impacted by Alzheimer’s Disease. Please join the Alzheimer’s Association and me in encouraging Senator Schatz to advance policies and make progress in the fight against Alzheimer’s and all other dementia.

To learn more about this disease and how you can join the fight to end Alzheimer’s, visit alzimpact.org.

POKI’I BALAZ, Alzheimer’s Association Aloha Chapter Advocate

Advice for Gov. Green on bills he should sign

Hawaii’s Legislature passed 274 bills this year — out of more than 3,000 introduced. But so far, Gov. Josh Green has signed only a handful of them.

That leaves a lot of bills for him to read and decide their fates. So in the spirit of “E hana kakou” (“Let’s work together”), I would like to offer some recommendations that should make the governor’s job a little easier.

First, he should sign SB674, which would allow Hawaii to join the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact and make it easier for out-of-state doctors to practice in Hawaii.

Attracting more medical professionals to Hawaii is not just a good idea — it is an urgent need. Our state is short almost 800 physicians, and that has caused enormous suffering and inconvenience for Hawaii residents in need of healthcare, especially in rural areas and on the neighbor islands.

The doctor compact already includes 37 other states, and with just a stroke of the governor’s pen, doctors from every one of them would be able to relocate to the islands without having to jump through any of Hawaii’s difficult, expensive and time-consuming regulatory hoops.

I realize joining the interstate licensure compact for doctors would not solve all of Hawaii’s healthcare problems, but it would be an important first step.

Next, Gov. Green should sign SB1437, a tax reform bill that would allow “pass-through entities” such as partnerships and S corporations to deduct their state income tax liabilities from their federal income tax liabilities.

Given that Hawaii is considered one of the worst states for businesses and entrepreneurs, this would be a simple way to lower the tax burden on local businesses — and at no cost to the state! The practice has been approved by the IRS and is already allowed in 29 other states, saving businesses in those states billions of dollars.

On the “thumbs down” side of the ledger, Gov. Green should veto SB945, a heavy-handed licensing scheme that could potentially run cryptocurrency companies in Hawaii out of business.

Among the bill’s many major flaws, it would give the Division of Financial Institutions director immense power to rewrite the law at will. Not only would this create a potential conflict with any federal regulations, but it would put too much power in the hands of an unelected bureaucrat and create a paralyzing level of regulatory uncertainty for cryptocurrency companies hoping to do business in our state.

I also would like to see the governor veto HB525, another massive bill that could derail the growth of cryptocurrency in Hawaii.

Most of the bill concerns amendments to the state’s Uniform Commercial Code, but one section would exclude all digital currencies from the definition of “money,” unless they were created by a government. This, of course, would leave all the other cryptocurrencies out in the cold in the case of commercial payment disputes.

Aside from these four bills, there is the matter of the legislature’s proposed budget, which stands to increase general fund spending by 23 percent over last year and exceed the state’s legal spending limit by more than 10 percent, or more than $1 billion.

My hope is that Gov. Green will use his line-item veto power to trim back this massive spending overreach, including the $200 million “slush fund” that the legislature appropriated to him, which goes against our ideals of transparency and government accountability.

Gov. Green has until June 26 to submit his intent-to-veto list to the legislature, but I hope this short list gives him a head start on how to deal with all the bills that remain on his desk.

DR. KELI’I AKINA, President & CEO, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii