Addressees -2- the funds allocated by DOE to the High Commissioner and in turn to the District Administrator, Marshalls are exhausted. Dr. Burr, Roger Rey, Dr. Weyzen and I discussed the fact that some of the patients have contacted Micronesian Legal Services Corporation to look into the matter of entitlement. We all agreed that it made good sense to honor these claims once we had a handle on how much they were. If funds are available for this perhaps the High Commissioner could be contacted to call for all these outstanding claims to be sent to Saipan from Majuro for review and payment. DOE could then reimburse the TTPI and essentially clean up everything under this agreement. , This brought up another main point of our discussions on this issue, that being the new agreement DOE will enter into with the TTPI to address the new TT Public Law which takes the place of old PL No, 5-52. I told Dr. Burr that PASO would be willing to assist him in the administration of new agreement to the extent he wished. He had mentioned the possibility of putting this in the NV financial plan and in turn our office could be charged with administering the program. I then offered our assistance once decisions are made on handling past claims under the old agreement. , One of the main problems of administering the current agreement, from the Marshall Islands Administration's point of view, is that patients are collecting the per diem and still eating and sleeping at the hospital free of charge. problem, ‘Although this is a Marshalls’ the new Public Law and thus the new DOE/TTPI agreement does not stipulate a set per diem rate. I suggested that DOE and the TTPI may want the new agreement to stipulate that some of the DOE funds are to be. used to reimburse the hospitals for bed and meal charges. each. I was told that meal costs, when charged, are $.50 Patients could then be paid an additional daily stipend for incidentals, perhaps.$2.00 or $3.00. With this type framework it would seem that several things could be accomplished, namely the Program would probably be less costly, the patients would continue te be afforded balanced meals, the reimbursement to the hospital would help a Marshalls' administrative and financial problem, and the patients would still have a stipend for incidentals. , Dr. Burr appeared to favor the suggestion that PASO become involved in the administration of thé programs resulting from impending decisions and we were all aware that any such action,would be cleared through the Nevada Operations Office.