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Sunshine Memo 12-10
Applicability of Sunshine Law to
Interim Board of Directors
of the Hawaii Health Connector
The Interim Board of Directors of the Hawaii Health
Connector (Interim Board) is not a board as defined by the Sunshine
Law and is not subject to the requirements of the Sunshine Law.
The federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 provides
for the establishment by the federal government of health insurance
exchanges in every state if the state does not establish its own
exchange by January 1, 2014. Act 205 of 2011 established a Hawaii
health insurance exchange known as the Hawaii Health Connector (Connector).
Act 205 expressly states that the Connector “shall not be
an agency of the State. . . . The connector shall be a Hawaii nonprofit
corporation organized and governed pursuant to chapter 414D, the
Hawaii nonprofit corporations act.” HRS § 435H 2(a).
The Connector is a nonprofit entity governed by a board of directors
which shall commence on July 1, 2012. Prior to July 1, 2012, Act
205 provided for establishment of the Interim Board, which shall
“sunset” on June 30, 2012.
It is clear from Act 205 that the Connector and its board of directors
are not State entities. The Interim Board is operating the Connector,
a nonprofit corporation, until the Interim Board’s sunset
date when the board of directors will take over. The Interim Board
is not an “an agency, board, commission, authority, or committee
of the State or its political subdivisions.” Rather, it is
a governing board for a nonprofit corporation. Thus, the Interim
Board, having failed to meet the first prong of the definition of
a “board,” is not subject to the Sunshine Law.
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