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Opinion

The Territory cries out for fast, dependable, reasonably priced Internet (and cell phone service). Utu Abe Malae (ASPA CEO) and Dr. Rosevonne Pato (President of ASCC) spoke eloquently to the Cabinet last week, sharing how the future in education, telemedicine and the “Smart Grid” are here now, if...
Dear Editor, I would like to respond to the letter to the editor in Friday’s paper — Sept. 22 — regarding the comments made by the editor at the end of the column. The suggestion that these drugs be made legal and taxed is not as far fetched as it may sound.  Many of the European countries have...
Dear Editor, I read today's article w/both astonishment and disbelief. Is our esteemed commish of public safety for real? Stiffer sentences he says?!  That’s all and well, were it not for the fact that he needs to clean his own house first and foremost. Is he even remotely aware that many of his...
Hello Conversationalists in American Samoa! It is my honor to be with you once again this week. Much thanks to Mr. Tom Drabble who was the main contributor to our column last week! I know there has been lots of discussion about what he suggested, and I look forward to hearing more from our readers...
Welcome back to The Conversation! Before we launch into the meat of this week's column, it's important that we first revisit our structure and framework, the pillars if you will, that are supporting and driving the focus of The Conversation. Once we as a community recognize a Challenge, that begins...
THE CONVERSATION   In speaking with a friend of mine who had spent the last month off island in Hawai’i and other places Stateside, I was welcoming him back.  I said "Welcome back to ... well, I'm not sure what to describe it as"... to which he replied with a smirk something that was rather...
Now that we have seen some of the differences between MediCARE and MediCAID, and what implications those differences have in terms of maintaining funding for the comprehensive healthcare of the residents of AS, I would like to dig a little deeper into that murky well of U.S. taxpayer dollars that...
In my last edition of this Op-Ed, I left you to consider whether ASG (and LBJ, but I believe that we can even include the DOH here too, etc.) has been claiming anywhere near all of the money that it is entitled to under the various healthcare options available to a U.S. Territory. Now, let’s follow...
In my initial op-ed, we began with the discussion of LBJ’s foray into the world of electronic medical records (EMR) as an example of American Samoa’s struggles managing the public funding for the business of healthcare. It was the early 2000s when this Federal EMR push really started happening, and...
As a Medicare/Medicaid-qualified physician who lived and worked in AS for over 14 years (and ran the Dept. of Pediatrics at the LBJTMC for about half of that time), I am greatly troubled by the ongoing inability of the leaders in the Territory to properly obtain and manage adequate healthcare...

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