My issues are not fully resolved and may never be but I hope that the battles to get procedures approved and covered lessen and consume less of my time allowing more time for my life’s goals. And I know that many out there are suffering gravely.

While the recent GAO investigation and resulting report are a welcome beginning to examining long-standing problems within both the USDOL and Peace Corps’ handling of healthcare for volunteers, it fails to provide significant insight into the issues or make many recommendations beyond what was already known.”

We feel changes in legislation are also needed in the following areas to:

1. Place an expert with knowledge of Peace Corps job service and health issues within the USDOL to broker our claims, since the paperwork doesn’t reflect our unique types of health issues or job responsibilities
2. Create a health insurance plan, as other Federal employees have when they become sick/injured on a job. When volunteers return home sick/injured some become uninsurable due to their “pre-existing illness” from their Peace Corps service.” Because we are deemed “volunteers” and not “employees,” we are not grated the same privileges that other federal employees get.
· 3. Increase the “value” of Peace Corps Volunteers to a level greater than a GS-7, step 1 so that when they are unable to work, due to illness/injury, their disability is not fixed at a level that keeps them in poverty in America.

Health Justice for Peace Corps Volunteers remains hopeful that the concerns of the Acting Director and newly hired staff at Peace Corps will continue to advocate for our needs and that legislation can be enacted to make positive changes permanent, especially within the USDOL. The general public knows little of the suffering many have endured because of service-related health issues since the founding of the Peace Corps fifty one years ago. Fortunately, we now have some advocates at Peace Corps who truly seem to understand the magnitude of the issues.

AfterCorps also raised its monthly premiums without notice in September of this year, by over 30%. Federal law requires that insurance companies provide notice to clients of a rate increase, so that they have time to seek out insurance from other companies if the new rate is too high. When I called to complain, the representative I spoke to said, “In our agreements, we do reserve the right to change rates at any time.”

It doesn’t make sense to me. We leave the comfort of our lives because we feel that we are called to serve. How Peace Corps and the Department of Labor can make the process of getting help with illnesses we experience on the job so difficult is something that bothers me tremendously. If this continues, Peace Corps will not be able to find amazing men and women to serve, which is a shame. It is a wonderful agency that puts America’s best foot forward. But as long as people hear about the horrors of FECA and AfterCorps, they’ll stay away.

Again, it is so sad to hear of PCVs/RPCVs who leave with such negative experiences, and I’m sorry their PC time was tarnished like it was. It baffles me that PC and FECA are not doing more to support these volunteers. It also amazes me that there are so few medical professionals who participate in the system. I thought the medical field was “do no harm”, and when doctors refuse to see patients because they are under FECA, it is doing harm. Every medical professional should be obligated to see a small % of patients receiving medical benefits (FECA, workers’ comp, Medicaid, Medicare, etc) so that the responsibility is spread thin but wide, and access to medical care is increased to all.