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Lawmakers prepare for MILA
Air service, shipping cost, healthcare, and free trade issues between Guam and the Commonwealth, among others, headlined discussion between House lawmakers on Tuesday as they prepared the central topics for the assembly of the Marianas Islands Legislative Association later this year.
The lawmakers also plan meet with counterparts in the Senate to discuss these issues further.
During discussion Tuesday, air service between Saipan and Guam—due to the much-maligned services of Cape Air/United—remained a central topic. Lawmakers spoke to cancelled or delayed flights and the lack of compensation for travelers stuck on Guam.
Rep. Antonio Sablan (Ind-Saipan) noted that both attorneys general for Guam and the CNMI have come out publicly on the Cape Air issue. “United needs to improve air services,” he said.
Rep. Blas Jonathan Attao (Ind-Saipan) said Guam is the “main hub” of international travel in the region. “We are stuck at the whim of Cape Air” and in the event “if Cape Air decides to cut ties we will have to fly” to Japan to get to Guam.
In the case when people are stranded in Guam due to cancelled flights, Attao said, residents have to “shoulder everything until they get a flight out of Guam.”
Sablan also noted shipping issues between Guam and Saipan that need to be addressed. He spoke toward the additional charges as result of having goods shipped through ports in Guam. “Depending on long they are there, costs are incurred,” he said.
Rep. Vinson Sablan (Ind-Saipan) pointed at the lack of practicing physicians at the local hospital. He asked that lawmakers look at policies that Guam has in place to allow licensed physicians from foreign countries practice on the island.
Sablan said the NMI is not allowed to have license physicians from foreign countries because of Medicare and Medicaid rules.
“When you have just a couple of doctors walking the halls on a 24-hour basis, it’s tough,” Sablan later told reporters. “We should get information CHCC and their leadership and see what their concerns are before we head into this MILA conference.”
Sablan wants to start conversations with the CNMI’s sister islands to see what they have done to have “the effective healthcare that we also rely on.”
