EDITOR, The Tribune.
I have had many conversations lately concerning the PLP’s new national health insurance legislation. KPMG came out and said they were in favour of the legislation, and I believe they are. After all they were hired to create a framework in which national health insurance and universal healthcare function. The wrong question was asked of KPMG, it should not have been, do they support the legislation, but rather questions like:
• What should our unemployment levels be to allow the country to afford NHI.
• What should the growth rate be of the economy, should we be in a recession like we are now or would it be better to have an expanding economy?
• When launching a new entitlement plan such as NHI is not difficult to plan for funding in a recession economy?
• What is the likelihood the plan will run into financial problems if our current economic conditions remain the same?
• When will these financial problems begin to become apparent, 2017?
• Do you feel it is feasible to have a public insurer up and running and being efficient between now and the beginning of the primary care roll-out in 2017? If yes, what steps do you plan to take to ensure this happens?
• The government has proposed many structural changes to the public healthcare system, do you feel structural changes are enough to improve the public health system or do you also feel that significant process changes need to take place as well?
• Do you feel that many of these process changes need to be in place prior to the roll-out of primary healthcare package, if not please elaborate your reasoning?
You see when you ask a limited question you get a limited response. I have no doubt that KPMG if asked any of the above questions or many more that should be asked their response would not be quite so positive. The Bahamian government led by the Prime Minister is rushing down the road to implement national health insurance for the sole purpose of telling the electorate that they did it! That the PLP and Prime Minister Perry Christie were the architects of the first national health insurance programme in the Bahamas, what an accomplishment! What they fail to realize is they will also go down in history as the architects of the destruction of the Bahamian economy with their selfish implementation of a plan that is doomed to failure because it has been rushed into existence for political reasons and not to help the Bahamian people. Everybody needs to realize that a good national health insurance plan has many phases of implementation, which takes years to achieve and more money than what we currently have. One final note, I noticed the government wants to bring in Cuban doctors to replace Bahamian doctors who do not go along with their plan. I was thinking that perhaps we should bring in politicians from Luxembourg to show this group how to run a country and raise the per capita income to truly first world standards, and to a level in which we all could easily afford high-quality healthcare.
FED UP
Nassau,
August 9, 2016
Comments
Well_mudda_take_sic 8 years, 1 month ago
NHI can never be financially viable unless we first do something about our very serious illegal Haitian immigrant problem. But we don't see our government telling the Haitian Ambassador to the Bahamas that he should be encouraging his own government back in Haiti to assist with the repatriation of all Haitians who are currently illegally residing in the Bahamas. If the Haitian Ambassador and his Haitian government want their people looked after and treated humanely, then they themselves should arrange for this to be done at their own cost. The Bahamian people have done more than enough over the past 40 or so years and it has cost us dearly. It is time for Haiti to step up to the plate and bear the cost of looking after its own people, including the costs of their repatriation. It is an absurdity for this Haitian Ambassador to suggest in any way that we are inhumane when it is the inhumane Haitian government that fails to look after its own people, and constantly seeks handouts from others, like Bahamians, that could never be enough in the eyes of the Haitian government. These illegal immigrants should be seen for who and what they are......a problem caused by Haiti, the costs of which should be borne by Haiti and not the Bahamas! The Haitian government or international human rights groups should be bearing the costs of making life less miserable for these illegal immigrants; it is not in our interest to do so from the stand point of deterrence. To make life easy for them at our cost only means many more will come to our shores illegally, and likely with the Haitian government encouraging them to do so. We need to be very mindful of the fact that our sovereignty and culture as Bahamians is a very fragile one, and our economy is equally fragile and under great stress as it is. We are also now experiencing the effects of over-population given our very limited land area. We must resist caving to accusations from the Haitian government and human rights groups that Bahamians are an inhumane people when such persons, especially the human rights activists, are not willing themselves to bear the true costs of this vexing problem. We Bahamians have done all that can be reasonably expected of us over the last 40 plus years and are our economy is now financially crippled. It high time others started doing their part....starting with the Haitian government and the international human rights groups which have for years unfairly and unjustifiably blamed Bahamians for the plight of the Haitians illegally residing in our country!
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