Letter from Jerry Richman to Bess W. Truman

August 8, 1975 Dear Aunt B, We would like to thank you again for the lovely time we had in Independence. For me, the opportunity to visit the library was a unique and memorable experience, one which I hope to repeat. Most of all, it was delightful to visit with you and Aunt May again. We have moved into our new house, which seems very nice SO far, although it will be a while before everything is in its right place. There's painting, putting up a fence, hanging drapes and shutters, arranging and rearranging furniture, and a thousand other things to do. And wait until you see what we're doing next week! So, in the midst of all this, we've run into a problem for which I must, with great reluctance, ask your assistance. It concerns getting adequate medical care for Margo. It's a bit complicated, SO please bear with me in what will probably be a lenghty explanation. About twenty years ago the military recognized that certain medical services were either not available to military dependents or could not be provided without infringing upon medical care for servicemen. Consequently, there was a program devised called CHAMPUS (Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services), which allows, among other things, for wives and children of servicemen to obtain medical care from civilian doctors--with the government footing most of the bill. The program still exists, and several of Margo's friends have taken advantage of it in the past couple of years to have their babies and get prenatal care as well. To make a long story short, we applied for CHAMPUS at the local Army hospital and the application was denied. As explained to me, the CHAMPUS program in the Washington area has recently come under fire from Congress for granting too much money for dependent wives to have babies while military facilities for OB/GYN care were allegedly underutilized. The final authority for CHAMPUS applications at Ft. Meade resides with Walter Reed Army Hospital. Walter Reed also provides obstetrics care for Ft. Meade in the form of two clinics on Monday and Wednesday mornings. At each clinic, the two doctors from Walter Reed see approximately one hundred patients during four hours. I'm sure you will agree that no matter how well qualified those two doctors may be, their caseload does not instill any great degree of confidence about the quality of care each individual patient will receive.