Is Big Island becoming Waikiki?
Is the Big Island becoming another headache like Oahu?
Right next to Living Stones Church on Alii Drive, it started with just one man setting up his camp, living in his car — he even built a little rock wall with cement in the rocks. He’s been there for months.
Just recently, his friends or family have moved in with their open-air living quarters, awnings, cook stoves and all the garbage they could bring. I would suspect this is a health code violation or two. I can just see us becoming another Waikiki. it’s perfectly fine to beg for money, set up camp in a residential neighborhood. What’s next? Dropping your drawers and defecating on the streets? What are we becoming or teaching our children?
Joani Duncan
Kona
Slow medical billing wasting money
Here’s one reason medical costs here are so high: I just got the co-pay bill for an operating room visit a year ago. What other business takes almost a year to send out a bill?
Assume 100 patients a day at $65 each equals $6,500 per day. Times that by 365 days a year and you have $2,372,500 per year outstanding. At 5 percent interest, this is a $118,625 opportunity loss — or one full-time nurse.
Then there is the difficulty in collecting a bill that old.
Ken Obenski
Kaohe, South Kona