The Tribune

IT NOW seems to be a case of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.

Former PLP MP Philip Galanis has warned his party that it will lose the 2017 election if Prime Minister Christie does not slow down the implementation of National Health Insurance until his government understands what “it is attempting to accomplish” and Bahamians are informed of what they are being offered.

On the other hand, Tall Pines MP Leslie Miller has urged his government to move full steam ahead to implement NIB on time – January 1, 2016 – or face defeat at the polls in 2017.

“I’m not really sure yet that it (Christie government) has a clear understanding of where it wants to go on this,” Mr Galanis told The Nassau Guardian. “And secondly, it’s going to be important for them to include the stakeholders in this economy and that includes the insurance companies.

“Whether or not persons believe that they are trying to form a cartel, I think it’s important because they are the ones who are primarily invested in this area,” said Mr Galanis. It was PLP party chairman Bradley Roberts, who suggested that the private insurance companies wanted to form their own “monopolistic cartel with unfettered powers to raise premiums to ensure profits.” Mr Roberts said that the private companies wanted no government involvement in universal health insurance.

This was not just an untruth it was a downright lie. This subject is just too serious for uninformed politicians like Bradley Roberts to be participating. If Mr Roberts had bothered to read — and if having read to understand– he would have known that the insurance companies’ proposal included government input.

“We were elected to look out for the people,” Mr Miller told The Tribune. “Mr Christie knows that we have to stop all these cookouts in aid of medical expenses. He knows people can’t keep dying because they cannot afford medical attention.”

This is what the Bahamian people have been encouraged to believe will happen when National Health Insurance is implemented. It is obvious that even Mr Miller does not know what his own government is offering Bahamians.

If they believe that NIB means the end of cookouts, then they are in for a rude awakening. It will be the same old story all over again when at election time in 2012 the PLP promised that if elected crime would be brought under control and “10,000 immediate jobs” would be provided. Instead we have climbing unemployment — which will be even worse if NIB is rushed — and this year the Bahamas broke all crime records with 138 murders.

Now let us get this straight, NIB, if introduced in January 2016, will not eliminate cookouts. The promised roll-out NIB package is very basic, including such items as annual exams, ante-natal care, some ultrasound and X-rays, to name just a few. This is not what people have cookouts for. Cookouts are to raise funds for such catastrophic care as major surgeries – heart surgery, neurosurgery, joint replacements, and the like. Cook outs will continue, although you will be able to see the doctor for free if you have a cough or a cold. This care you can already get for free at the Princess Margaret Hospital’s out patients department.

Mr Miller said that the Prime Minister has met several times with the stakeholders — “sometimes late into the night — and has been more than accommodating in listening to Bahamas Insurance Association’s (BIA) concerns.” The only reason that he would be meeting late into the night is that “he is always late — at least one to two hours every time I’ve been there,” commented a person who has attended these so-called late night sessions.

Although government has admitted that it does not have all of the answers, the prime minister has urged a now sceptical public to trust his government not to do anything that would disrupt the economy. Based on his government’s track record, this is really too much to ask of a once trusting people.

Mr Miller has urged that despite the continued criticism, the government should still move forward with launching NHI in January 2016. If the initiative should face challenges, said Mr Miller, it should make “adjustments where and if they are needed.”

However, this undertaking is so serious that by then it would be too late.

Already there is so much happening to disrupt the economy, it would be foolhardy to keep adding to the disruptions. In health care alone, government’s chief Medical officer Dr Glen Beneby has admitted that around $100m, or 25-30 per cent of its annual healthcare spending is wasted. PricewaterhouseCoopers, retained by government to review the cost and funding for NHI, reported that “implementation of NHI as it is currently proposed has the potential to seriously destabilise both the public and private sectors of the health care system, risking the success of NHI.”

These are the government’s own advisors urging them to put the brakes on. The insurance companies are not the only ones concerned. So are the Medical Association of the Bahamas (MAB) and the allied health workers. We are told that they have all tried to talk sense to the government — but ”it is not listening.”

Mr Miller fears that all of the naysayers are going to sidetrack the Prime Minister with threats of job losses. “He must go through with it and then we can fine tune this as we go on,” advised Mr Miller.

If Mr Miller thinks that this is an idle threat by the industry, then he is fooling himself and giving the Prime Minister dangerous advise.

“This is no threat - it is a promise,” we were told. “I have spoken to insurance companies who are already making plans for lay-offs. Many companies that now provide private health insurance for their employees will drop it. The pool of insured will go down so much that the supplemental insurance government claims people will be able to buy will be too high for most to afford.”

The Prime Minister should not be embarrassed to tell his fellow Bahamians the truth. He would certainly go up in the estimation of the Bahamian people if he came out and admitted that more time was needed for such and important scheme to be implemented.

But should he rush ahead with a failed plan, Bahamians are so upset today with all of the failures to date, that government will probably have an uphill battle to continue to the 2017 election.

We all believe that health care should be available to everyone, but to make a mistake in introducing it, as the Bible says – “the last state will be worse than the first”.