Cost share for the Jan 8 medical charter to Honolulu not yet determined

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Any cargo on the planned third medical charter flight to Honolulu next month will help reduce the “cost-share” paid by non-medical patients, says Sandra King-Young, director of the American Samoa Medicaid State Agency — or Medicaid Office — which is coordinating the charter.

In a news release over the weekend, the Medicaid Office announced that Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga has approved a 3rd Medical Charter on Jan. 8th 2021. It also says that non-Medicaid passengers must pay “cost share” to ASG Treasury between Jan. 4 to Jan. 6th, 2021. (See Samoa News edition Dec. 14th for details).

However, the news release provides no amount that non-medical patients will be required to pay for the “cost-share”. This has prompted public inquiries to Samoa News.

“We have offered to shippers the chance to send cargo on the flight from Pago to Honolulu. If there is any cargo, that will help reduce the cost share,” King-Young said yesterday responding to Samoa News inquiries.

“We are giving the shippers until Dec. 31 to request cargo space. Then we will calculate the cost share by January 1 and then we will allow people to pay their cost share at Treasury starting Jan. 4, 2021,” she pointed out.

A non-medical patient, looking at traveling on this charter, said he was hoping for an earlier date to know how much it will cost “so that I can have my family in Hawaii help with the airfare, instead of waiting to find out later as to the cost.”

“It would be nice to know in advance — instead of waiting during the holiday times,” said another non-medical patient, who’s hoping to head to the US mainland for “family obligations”.

According to the Medicaid Office’s news release, cargo space is available to ship cargo from Pago to Honolulu. All shippers must have their cargo into Hawaiian Airlines local office by Dec. 31st and Hawaiian Airlines will issue an invoice for cargo fees and shippers must pick up a cargo payment form from Medicaid to pay for the cargo at Treasury.

As previously reported by Samoa News — based on information from the Medicaid Office — non-medical patients on the July charter paid $884 per passenger for the cost share while it was $920 for the October charter flight.

As in the first two-charters — in July and October — the flight is one-way meaning that there will be no passengers on the Hawaiian Airlines flight from Honolulu to Pago Pago. And only passengers on the outbound flight — with times of arrival and departure to be announced in the coming days for the Jan. 8th charter.