LETTERS
Letters The Razorbacks’ Edge The authors of your May article, “How the Chamber’s Computers Con Congress,” [Mark Green and Andrew Buchsbaum] seem to think Wilbur Mills represented an Illinois...
...Allow me to cite an example...
...The program did not cover eyeglasses for simple refractive errors...
...Medicaid being chronically underfunded by Pennsylvania’s General Assembly, we chose no one...
...The program re-opened May 7 and was scheduled to close May 17...
...In 1977, Pennsylvania’s Medical Assistance program, in accordance with federal policy, provided eyeglasses to adult Medicaid recipients only if pathology required them...
...The bureaucracy, while frequently outrageous, does not always deserve your or the public’s enmity...
...H. RICHARD SOUDERS Wayne, New Jersey 7he writer is vicepresident for Group Insurance of Prudential Insurance Company of North America...
...Early this year, another court ordered us to re-open the eyeglass program...
...I admit there is a Fayetteville in Illinois...
...More Guilt Bonnie Goldstein, in her article about trade association insurance plans [“Guilt by Association,” February], cites the group Life plan of the American Nurses Association...
...Letters The Razorbacks’ Edge The authors of your May article, “How the Chamber’s Computers Con Congress,” [Mark Green and Andrew Buchsbaum] seem to think Wilbur Mills represented an Illinois district...
...was named the broker, in February 1979...
...On May 16, one day before the program was to end, yet another court ruled that 30 days’ notice was insufficient-not for the recipients, mind you, but for the providers...
...but unless it has a sister city program going to bring in all Wilbur’s friends and relatives for the day, I think Fayetteville, Arkansas, a far more likely location...
...She identifies Prudential as the insurer (insurance carrier), Kirke-Van Orsdel Inc...
...In view of this glaring error, we ask you to retract your statement about the broker’s and ANA’s commission arrangements: “It costs nurses nearly 20 percent of their premiumsjust to get their money delivered to Prudential...
...The court said that closing the program would cause a severe economic impact on them...
...I say “per week” because there is another episode in this story...
...and to provide 30 days’ notice to recipients that the program would end...
...I regret the error...
...TIMOTHY POTTS Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania Mr...
...KATHERINE A. HINCKLEY Akron, Ohio The Eyes Get It Having been a government official for nearly eight years, and having read The Washington Monthly nearly as long, I want to thank you for helping me become a better bureaucrat...
...The cost is now estimated to be $250,000 per week...
...Prudential ceased to be ANA’s insurer when Kirke-Van Orsdel Inc...
...The Welfare Rights Organization challenged this policy in court...
...a t least, they imply that in describing the “Fayetteville, Illinois” banquet honoring him...
...Since I had no reason to doubt that ANA’s broker would know the identity of its own carrier, I made no further effort to verify this information...
...The court agreed...
...At that time, the entire account was transferred to North American Life & Casualty...
...It instructed the DPW to reopen the program...
...While the DPW is appealing this latest decision, the program remains open to satisfy the court’s instruction in case the welfare department loses its appeal...
...7he author replies: I was told by officials of Kirke-Van Orsdel that Prudential was ANA’s carrier...
...Potts is assistant press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Atblic Weyare...
...Response was so great that one provider, Pearle Vision Centers, is reported to have shipped its entire national production to Pennsylvania in order to meet demand...
...My criticism was reserved for Kirke-Van Orsdel, ANA, and others like them...
...as the broker (who arranges the insurance...
...to notify all 600,000 Medicaid recipients that eyeglasses were available for both pathology and refractive errors...
...The court ordered us to provide eyeglasses for all adults with any vision problem, or for no one...
...As the full context of the article makes clear, I did not say that insurance carriers like Prudential are benefiting from the generous commission arrangements associations and brokers make for themselves...
...The Welfare Rights Organization had charged that the Department of Public Welfare, three years ago, did not provide adequate notice to Medicaid recipients that the eyeglass benefits would end...
...Often we bureaucrats are backed into a corner of absurdity despite our best efforts...
...I also want to point out something I have learned in that time...
Vol. 12 • September 1980 • No. 7
