Check your doctor and hospital bills, especially large bills. If there’s anything you don’t understand, call your health care provider or health plan.

If you ate at a restaurant and ordered the hamburger dinner, you would question your bill if you were charged for a lobster and a bottle of wine. You should do the same review of your medical bills.

The Medical Billing Advocates of America found 80 percent of hospital bills contained some errors. The errors they found included:

• Duplicate billing - charging twice for the same service, drugs, or supplies. 

Big Island - 1,500 union members attended the Labor Day event at the Waimea Community Center on the Big Island. There was bingo for the older folk.

Japanese unions have pledged to step up their efforts to boycott the Pacific Beach Hotel and hotel owners, HTH Corporation.

They took this action after hearing from Local 142 Secretary-Treasurer Guy Fujimura and Virginia Recaido, one of the Pacific Beach Hotel union leaders fired by HTH Corporation who owns the Pacific Beach and Pagoda hotels. “The tremendous support from the Japanese unions was amazing and uplifting,” said Fujimura.

Make your vote count for working families! Support your union’s recommendations in the Primary Elections this September 20, 2008. ILWU members and families are urged to take a Democratic Ballot and vote for those candidates listed below. Cut out these lists and keep them in your wallet as a reminder when you vote. 

America’s middle class may be suffering from high gas prices and canceling plans to vacation in Hawaii, but the number of millionaires in the world is growing and they will continue their luxury travel and spending even during rough economic times.

The economies of the United States, the European Union, and Japan have slowed, but the Middle East, Latin America, India, and China are booming.

Most of the new millionaires are coming from India, China, Brazil and Russia and they have a big appetite for luxury goods and first class travel.

Every union contract has one—it’s called a wage schedule. This is usually found near the back of the contract and shows a list of job titles, the hourly wage paid to each job title, and the dates of wage increases.

The following example shows some of the job titles and wage increases from a typical ILWU hotel contract.

About 120 representatives of the ILWU’s 20 pensioner clubs from all Divisions gathered on June 23-25 in Hilo for the 24th biennial conference of the ILWU State Pensioners Association. They heard from guest speakers, passed resolutions, and had a grand time seeing old friends and making new ones.

Most medical plans provide for regular physical exams and health screenings. It’s a good idea to take advantage of this benefit.

Health screenings are done to prevent serious health problems and to detect disease early, when the disease is more easily cured.

Tests are done to determine the possible presence of a disease or other health problem. Health screenings are often done routinely as a preventive measure, or may be done when there is reason to suspect a particular health problem exists.

Negotiating Committee members from left to right: Robyn Tadio; SecretaryTheresa Cabulizan; Leanne Perez; Hawaii Division Director-Richard Baker; Business Agent-Elmer Gorospe; Unit Chair-Myra Spencer.