Hawaiian healthcare holdup.(Inside Track)(Brief article)

Seven months after instituting the only state child universal healthcare program in the country, Hawaii is dropping the plan. According to an October AP report, the state could no longer afford the plan though it only enrolled about 2,000 of the state's estimated 3,500 to 16,000 uninsured children. The plan, which was funded through roughly equal payments by the state and the private Hawaii Medical Service Association (HMSA), the state's largest healthcare provider, was supposed to cover all children without health insurance from birth to age 18--"mostly immigrants and members of low-income families." Care was free except for a $7 copay for each doctor's visit. In conjunction with the cost of the plan, the state objected to the fact that families were dumping their private health ...