The Tribune

By DANA SMITH

Tribune Staff Reporter

dsmith@tribunemedia.net

A NATIONAL Health Insurance plan is still in the works and a final cost should be clarified around October, Health Minister Perry Gomez said yesterday.

As for the Prescription Drug Plan, one part of NHI, National Insurance Minister Shane Gibson confirmed that the plan is under review because of reports of high costs.

Giving an update on the national health insurance scheme prior to a Cabinet meeting, Dr Gomez said: “The National Health Insurance development is coming along. We appointed a committee, it is chaired by the deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr (Delon) Brennen. They have been meeting regularly now for two and a half months, making plans.

“We look forward to getting technical people more involved beginning next month so that we get not to the nuts and bolts of National Health Insurance.”

Dr Gomez said “a lot of the work” was already done by the first commission and this commission, headed by Dr Brennen, has been reviewing documents and “learning what NHI is all about”.

“People are very committed so I am optimistic as to what’s going on,” Dr Gomez said.

And as for a price tag on the implementation of a national health plan, he said: “We haven’t done the costing yet. That will come in October or so. We hope to get the help of the World Health Organisation involved in that as well because as you may know, universal health coverage is a top priority item for the World Health Organisation.”

Although a National Health Insurance Act was passed by the government in 2006, it has only been carried out partially through the Prescription Drug Plan, which officially started in 2010.

National Insurance Minister Mr Gibson said that plan is under review by NIB because of costs associated with it.

“We have a prescription drug plan that’s costing National Insurance $9 million per year,” he said. “Once the plan is fully implemented and you go on to the next phase, then you can start to have everybody contributing towards it; but the fact that it’s not covering everybody right now, it’s costing us $9 million... It’s a new plan, there are some kinks in the system that they were trying to work out and so we just want to make sure the plan is working the way it was intended to work.”