HMSA-HPH: AI Robot to be ‘Single Source of Truth’
“Lacking a lucid set of ethics and having rejected tradition, Technopoly searches for a source of authority and finds it in the idea of statistical objectivity.” -- Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, p 132
by Andrew Walden
“This is not a merger.”
At their February 4, 2026, news conference, CEOs of HMSA and Hawaii Pacific Health wanted to get this one point across before all others. Instead of merging, HMSA and HPH tell reporters they propose to form a new company “One Health Hawaii” to “provide strategy and shared administrative resources, including overseeing care decisions.”
This is HMSA’s second ‘not a merger’ in six months.
Barely noticed in Hawaii media, in September, 2025, HMSA became a co-founder of ‘Stellarus’ along with other Blue Cross/Blue Shield companies, Promise Health Plan, and Altais. Stellarus makes the HMSA-HPH ‘not a merger’ possible.
All human knowledge is flawed. Perfect knowledge is divine in nature. Yet, in announcing the Stellarus deal, HMSA claims the Stellarus AI robot will be “A Single Source of Truth.”
Artificial Intelligence is reshaping insurance and healthcare management and may soon eliminate the need for many white collar jobs in a business transformation similar to the rise of enterprise software in the 1990s.
Stellarus’ announcement reads:
Hawaii Medical Service Association (will be) using Stellarus' technology innovation platform, powered by artificial intelligence, to provide access to care that's smarter, more personalized and more affordable for the communities they serve.
In today's healthcare system, the adoption and use of the latest technology determine who can deliver affordable, high-quality care, and who gets left behind. But building or integrating advanced digital capabilities requires investments that most health plans simply can't afford. Stellarus was designed to change that.
Stellarus enables health plans of all sizes to leverage modern technology and artificial intelligence to improve the way they serve their members. Whether it's responding to member inquiries more quickly and accurately or providing near real-time authorizations for care, the Stellarus technology innovation platform makes health plans more efficient and the member experience better.
Sound familiar? Speaking at a February 12, 2026, Healthcare Summit, HMSA President and CEO, Mark Mugiishi compares ‘One Health Hawaii’ to Amazon:
“A platform that integrates the consumer, the seller, and the supply chain… creating the best experience and the lowest prices. Imagine that experience in healthcare….”
Promoting ‘One Health Hawaii’ in a Star-Advertiser column, February 22, 2026 Mugiishi and HPH CEO Ray Vara point to the high cost of unnecessary emergency room care and argue, “the patient could be safely treated elsewhere.”
ER costs are just a smokescreen. The plan is to use AI to turbocharge HMSA's existing system for "overseeing care decisions."
HMSA’s ‘prior authorization’ abuse is already the subject of ongoing litigation by doctors and patients. Ruling, February 2, 2024, on a lawsuit filed by Hilo’s ‘welfare doctor’ Frederick Nitta, MD, 3rd Circuit Judge Robert D S Kim voided HMSA, HMSA Medicare, and Quest ‘Participating Physician Agreements’ calling them, “oppressive, unconscionable, and unenforceable.”
How could ‘One Health Hawaii’ use AI? The Stellarus announcement explains:
Stellarus makes it seamless for health plans to integrate into its technology platform, which is comprised of core foundational components including:
- Experience Cube: An intelligent data hub that brings together disparate sources of information into a single source of truth.
- Digital health record: A comprehensive, longitudinal health record for every member that draws in data from the Experience Cube in near real-time.
By combining more than 60 data sets — ranging from clinical health and social demographic information to provider, billing and claims data — into a unified and secure source of truth for health plans, Stellarus' platform provides leading capabilities such as:
- Member and physician access to a comprehensive digital health record that facilitates truly personalized care.
- Fully automated, near real-time completion of transactions such as prior authorization.
- Technology-enabled, personalized support for patients with chronic conditions.
HMSA is not alone. On January 6, 2026, RSM, LLP announced the Hawaii Department of Health has begun Using Microsoft Azure AI to manage 3,600 developmentally disabled people. The DoH apparently intends to expand the use of AI to its entire caseload.
AI is not ‘intelligent’, it is programmed by people with agendas. These ‘people’ would be the very same HMSA executives who have been manually wielding ‘prior authorization’ restrictions to squeeze money out of the system by screwing patients out of needed medical procedures.
The plan is to harness a robot working 24 hours a day--denying ‘prior authorization’ faster and harder than ever before to enforce contracts that are “oppressive and unconscionable.”
Robots have no conscience. How ‘oppressive’ could they become in the hands of HMSA?
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