In the alternative, the unions demanded a pledge from the President that the implementation of UHC would not result in a reduction of the benefits currently provided to union members by their Health Rights Cooperative. When the Administration made it known to the AFL-CIO leadership that the President’s remarks would not include such a pledge, trouble broke out.

One would have thought that there would be precious little to protest about if one lived on Maui, but this turned out not to be the case. When Air Force One landed at Kahului Airport, the President was met by a crowd of protesters from Maui union locals representing workers in the construction trades, public employees and even nurses. The protesters waved signs in front of the television news cameras bearing such epithets as, “President Hart-Don’t Steal Our Benefits” and “Hart + Ignoring Labor = One Term.” Alongside of the AFL-CIO protesters, members of the local NAACP chapter rallied to advocate the expansion of government financed benefits under UHC, chanting “No Dental, No Peace.”

On the other side of the street, the handful of conservatives in the islands had gathered to protest the government’s takeover of the entire healthcare system. The television crews paid no attention to this group, therefore, for all intents and purposes, it did not exist.

Perhaps most surprising however, on an island to which absolutely everyone had come from somewhere else, was the raucous protest being conducted by an anti-immigration group. This group was marching to and fro to protest the anticipated extension of government financed healthcare to those whom the government termed “the undocumented,” but to whom the protesters gauchely referred as “illegal aliens.”

A nearly identical gaggle of union protesters greeted the President at the entrance to the Four Seasons Hotel. The protesters were kept out of the hotel proper, but the news crews had gleefully recorded the spectacle of an unquestionably rattled President Hart running this angry gauntlet.