Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker is famously engaged in a war against public workers in that state. Hawaii’s legislature, with no Republican governor to fear, is about to do a job on public workers (including themselves and their families) that will hugely profit health insurers. They are about to put near-monopoly insurers in charge of what treatments, surgery or medicines will be provided or denied in the state. What insurers deny, of course, is left to the patients to pay, if they can.
These insurers are major contributors to the campaigns of Hawaii legislators who sit on the conference committee about to pass out a bill that will sacrifice public workers and others for the benefit of these companies.
So Hawaii legislators are setting up public workers and others insured in the state for a significant transfer of private wealth into insurance company hands. Should a family member become ill, they could be denied treatment or medicines for which they will have to pay themselves. Small illness or life-threatening disease, they would have to pay if the insurer decided not to, with little effective remedy available.
Public worker unions have already made concessions. We're a peaceful state. But they don't yet know that their pockets are about to be picked if a bad bill becomes law.