The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The combination of the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme’s proposed Vital Benefits Package under the coupled with supplementary insurance products could overload the system and cause significant “negative reverberations” within the healthcare market, the Bahamas Insurance Association’s (BIA) deputy chairman warned yesterday.

Lyrone Burrows, Family Guardian’s president, told Tribune Business that Bahamians who currently possess private health insurance should be allowed to keep their existing coverage, with the NHI Vital Benefits Package initially directed at those who do not. 

“If you want to ensure that everyone has coverage, let’s work on those who have no coverage now; put them into the Vital Benefits Package,” he said.

“Everyone who currently has insurance coverage already has the Vital Benefits Package and they are paying it out of their own pockets.  Let’s work on the uncovered population now, move them through and, if it takes another two years or three years to work out the kinks, that’s fine.

“But, at the same time,  we shouldn’t degrade the level of coverage for those persons already in employer groups or who have their private plans.”

Mr Burrows added: “Over time we could begin a process of orderly transition of persons from their private health coverage if needs be, because it might be that the system works effectively. 

“Then we can systematically phase in the supplementary products to be able to ensure that, at the end of the day, they get both the Vital Benefits and the supplementary products.

“But, if we are talking about doing all of that at once or within a six or nine-months time frame, to me it’s  overloading the system and would cause significant negative reverberations within the healthcare market,” added Mr Burrows.

“I think that there are two concerns coming from the populace of the insured. Our take is there is a sector of the population which currently has no coverage, and it is the Government’s desire to ensure that that uncovered population has access to healthcare.

“Do we unravel the current grouping of persons that has coverage and are comfortable with their current plan arrangements? Do we scale them back and force them into the NHI Vital Benefits Package? It’s going to take a lot of work for that to be unraveled and then built back up.

“What the Government is proposing is you have everyone under the Vital Benefits Package and then you offer supplementary cover. You could put insurers in the position that the amount of people that are going to take up the supplementary cover will be substantially lower than those that are currently in the comprehensive plan, which has all the elements of the Vital Benefits Package and the supplementary all-in-one package. It’s a take it or leave it proposition currently.”

Mr Burrows said that until the Vital Benefits Package is operating smoothly, those who are currently insured should not be put through that “test”.

“When you begin to split it up, you may have a situation where the take-up for the supplementary cover may be reduced to the point where the cost of that supplementary coverage goes up higher on a per capita basis than it would have been previously because of the lower number of persons electing to take it up,” he said.

“You could end up in a situation where to get back to where you were before, the entire cost structure is elevated compared to where it is now. Until we are comfortable that the Vital Benefits Package in its entirety is working smoothly, why put the existing population through the test, so to speak?”