Chester CountyPRESS
www.chestercounty.com
Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 154, No. 21
INSIDE
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Chester County moving to yellow phase on June 5 By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
While the world remains in a wait-and-see phase somewhere between fear and cautious optimism about the continuing impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the residents of Chester County Kennett student’s and its many business owninnovation helps area ers are about to receive a hospitals...1B little good news. Beginning on June 5, Chester County will be among eight counties in Pennsylvania who will move from the red phase to the yellow phase, as part of Gov. Tom Wolf’s threetiered plan for reopening Pennsylvania during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Avon Grove salutes the Class of 2020...1B
Beginning May 27, businesses in the Kennett Borough and in Kennett Township can begin to apply for a loan and a grant through initiatives developed by Historic Kennett Square that are meant to provide financial assistance during the COVID-19 outbreak. The Primary Election is During the Kennett June 2...6B Economic Development Services Committee’s May 21 online meeting, Kennett Square Mayor Matt Fetick
Opinion.......................4A Obituaries...........2B & 3B Classifieds..................4B
To Subscribe Call 610.869.5553
Work & Congregate Setting Restrictions Telework must continue where feasible Businesses with in-person operations must follow business and building safety orders Child care facilities can open, providing they comply with guidance Congregate care and prison restrictions remain in place Schools are to remain closed for in-person instruction Social Restrictions Stay at home orders are lifted Large gatherings of more than 25 are prohibited In-person retail is permitted, although curbside and delivery is preferred Indoor recreation, health and wellness facilities and personal care services (such as gyms, spas, hair salons, nail salons and other entities that provide massage therapy), and all entertainment (such as casinos, theaters) remain closed Restaurants and bars are limited to carry-out and delivery only
As part of a statement released on May 22, Chester County will join Berks, Bucks, Delaware, Lackawanna, Lancaster,
Lehigh, Northampton, wealth to be removed from Montgomery, and the red phase. Philadelphia as part of that On May 29, Dauphin, move that makes them the Franklin, Huntingdon, last counties in the commonContinued on Page 2A
introduced the Community Relief Fund (CRP), a program of the Borough of Kennett Square that will be administered by True Access Capital. This program was developed by the borough’s Revolving Loan Fund Committee and approved by Borough Council. Through the CRP, a borough business can apply for a low-interest loan program up to $10,000, with no prinPhoto courtesy of Historic Kennett Square cipal and interest payments Beginning May 27, businesses in the Kennett Square due for the first 12 months. Borough and in Kennett Township can begin to apply After the first year, the for a loan and a grant through initiatives developed by Continued on Page 2A
Historic Kennett Square and other partners.
Oxford Borough pursuing offer to place cell tower on parking garage It could result in a public hotspot for the borough By Betsy Brewer Brantner Contributing Writer
© 2007 The Chester County Press
Yellow Phase
Financial support programs launch for Kennett Borough and Kennett Township businesses By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
INDEX
$1.00
The first council meeting to be held in the new Borough Hall building at 1 Octoraro Alley on the first floor of the multi-modal transportation center turned out to be a meeting held through Zoom instead. Zoom is a web-based video conferencing tool that allows users to meet online, with or without video. The public received instructions on how to participate, ahead of time through
required advertising and the Borough’s website. Council members discovered that Zoom was very easy to use. All attended, except Amanda Birdwell, who is working as a nurse during this global pandemic. Council and staff practiced social distancing while promoting new employee policies during this anything-but-normal time. The meeting was called to order by council president Peggy Russell. It was a full agenda since council had not met since the beginning
of March. Russell stated that an executive session was held on May 11, to discuss a real estate issue. One focus of the night was the Borough of Oxford’s decision to pursue an offer from AT&T to place a cell tower on the Multi-modal transportation center. The borough currently has a cell tower on their water tank, which has provided substantial revenues for Oxford for a number of years. But what piqued everyone’s interest was the possibility of providing
a mobile hotspot for the Borough. A hotspot is a physical location where people may obtain Internet access, typically using Wi-Fi technology, via a wireless local-area network (WLAN) using a router connected to an Internet service provider. Public hotspots may be created by a business for use by customers, such as coffee shops or hotels. However, hotspots would also provide internet to a population in the Borough that may not be able to afford the Continued on Page 5A
Rhys Whitehouse wins appointment to U.S. Coast Guard Academy Scholars Program By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer When Rhys Whitehouse was three years old, his family took him on a vacation to Bridlington, Yorkshire, one of the United Kingdom’s coastal towns. One day during that trip they saw the United Kingdom’s version of the Coast Guard—called Her Majesty’s Coastguard—do search-and-rescue training exercises. Mark Whitehouse can clearly remember his threeyear-son announcing to
the family that day that he wanted to join the Coast Guard one day. That day has arrived. Rhys Whitehouse, now a senior at Avon Grove High School, has won an appointment to the United States Coast Guard Academy Scholars Program. “He never wavered on that,” Mark Whitehouse said of his son’s determination to join the Coast Guard. “He was just locked in on Courtesy photo that from a very early age.” Rhys Whitehouse collects his Honor Cadet Award at Mark Whitehouse said the completion of AIM (Academy Introduction Mission) that the family moved to from Admiral William Kelly, the Superintendent of Continued on Page 3A
United States Coast Guard Academy.
Part 6 in a series
What You Need to Know About Health Insurance Their secret provider agreements By Frank Lobb When it comes to accessing healthcare, we face two very separate realities. The first is the one Congress and the healthcare insurance industry promote, which is that we don’t ration healthcare in the United States. The other is the one the Supreme Court has acknowledged where the rationing is the “very point” of our managed-care healthcare insurance system. Which raises the question of how can we have two realities for something so personal and public. How can our healthcare plans enforce rationing when common sense and the law tell us that only our doctor can determine the care we need and are promised? They do it by establishing secret contracts (Provider Agreements) with every innetwork doctor, hospital, and other healthcare provider within their network of approved healthcare providers and services — contracts that define every element of a provider’s operation within the network — contracts that restrict the right to coverage and payment — and contracts that severely limit the ability of our doctor to serve us. But, most important, these are contracts that cannot be found in any information or source available to you or me. These are contracts that are locked away from the public and never explained or even acknowledged. But they are contracts that I have seen and studied at length. With most contracts, the design is more important than its terms and conditions and that’s certainly true here. These contracts/Provider Agreements only allow an in-network provider (doctor, hospital, or other form of healthcare provider) to get paid if they comply with the decisions of your plan. That’s right, these Agreements literally bar a provider from billing you anytime they provide care your plan has refused to approve. So they don’t actually deny the care our doctor is prescribing. They simply say the provider can’t bill anyone for it. HOWEVER, and this is a very big however, these Agreements require the provider to supply the care OUR doctor is prescribing so long as it’s prescribed as necessary health care. The bottom line is that your plan is counting on you mistaking a denial of coverage and payment with a loss of the right to the care your doctor believes you need. Quite to the contrary, these Agreements make it absolutely clear that we are owed the care, but the provider is contractually required to provide it for free – free as in the provider isn’t allowed to bill us. Which opens the door for the next article. Frank Lobb, a local resident and business owner, is the author of “How to Refuse Your Hospital Bill.” More information about this topic is available at his website at www.killabill. com, and Mr. Lobb can be contacted at lobbsanalyticalworks@gmail.com.