Hawaii has an Erisa waiver.

• Author: Johnston, Laurel
• Position: Letter to the editor

Editor:

Aloha All--While we always appreciate NCSL's coverage of the hot topics, there is a side bar piece in the article "Prognosis for the Uninsured" in the May issue that says Congress has never granted a waiver from ERISA.

In fact, Hawaii's Prepaid Health Care Act of 1974 was granted such a waiver. Further, I was a bit disappointed that Hawaii wasn't mentioned at all, given that many others have been contacting us about the act as a result of the passage of the Massachusetts law, including AM Best and Business Week. If you plan to do a follow-up, you might want to talk about Hawaii because many think we are the closest state to "universal coverage" and yet we do still struggle with having uninsured in our state.

Laurel Johnston

Executive Director

Hawaii Institute for Public Affairs

Editor's note: We are doing a follow-up in the September issue. Since our article "Prognosis for the Uninsured"...