The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Insurance industry leaders have denied “dropping the ball” on seeking wider private sector support for their stance on National Health Insurance (NHI), adding: “It hasn’t killed our fight.”

Felicia Knowles, the Bahamas Insurance Brokers Association’s (BIBA) president, said that while efforts to revive the Coalition for Healthcare Reform had failed, the industry had still been able to draw on widespread support from other sectors.

She acknowledged, though, that the failure to adopt a unified private sector position on the proposed scheme had allowed the Government and its consultants to employ “divide and conquer tactics” by meeting with different groups separately.

Ms Knowles and Emmanuel Komolafe, the Bahamas Insurance Association’s (BIA) chairman, were both responding to suggestions by Rupert Roberts, Super Value’s owner, that the insurance industry had “dropped the ball” by not involving the wider private sector on NHI earlier.

Both denied it was the insurance industry’s fault. And, while emphasising that they wanted to be non-confrontational and avoid casting blame, each implied that the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC) had not acted onm the sector’s requests for a unified ‘Coalition’ style approach.

“I agree with him that the whole private sector should have been at the table a long time ago,” Mr Komolafe said of Mr Roberts, “but his comments don’t represent what transpired.

“We have several documented correspondences showing we tried to make it much broader under the private sector. It’s always the Chamber, which represents the whole private sector, that invites people to sit around the table.”

Ms Knowles, in an e-mailed response to Tribune Business, said: “Yes, the ‘ball was dropped’, but it was not dropped by the insurance industry.”

She added that herself, Mr Komolafe and another insurance broker, Jeanine Lampkin, all sat on the Chamber’s NHI committee. The body, chaired by former National Insurance Board (NIB) actuary, Derek Osborne, met weekly from early March through to April 2015.

Ms Knowles, though, said the NHI committee abruptly stopped meeting in April, and did not come together again until October for a presentation that was given by the Government’s consultants, Sanigest Internacional.

“In April, it was mentioned that we need to form the Coalition [for Healthcare Reform],” the BIBA president told Tribune Business subsequently in an interview.

“Everyone was for it but, all of a sudden, the Chamber and its committee stopped having meetings. They weren’t calling any meetings. The next formal meeting after April was in October.

“To say we have dropped the ball is totally unfair, as we have been pressing hard for a long time to get everyone on the business side together to understand what the Government is pushing forward.”

Edison Sumner, the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation’s (BCCEC) chief executive, denied that it had failed to move on insurance industry requests for a unified Coalition-style approach similar to what happened over Value-Added Tax (VAT).

He added that it was “not an accurate representation” to suggest the Chamber was instead responsible for failing to develop a unified approach, and said the NHI Committee was intended to perform the same functions as a ‘Coalition’.

Mr Sumner conceded, though, that Ms Knowles may have been correct in her assertion that the NHI committee did not meet during the April-October period.

He added quickly that this was due to the paucity of NHI information coming from the Government, which was then - and still is - developing much of the scheme’s details.

But Mr Sumner also acknowledged that plans to announce a partnership between the BCCEC and Chamber during April’s Chambers Conclave did not come to fruition.

The Chamber chief executive was somewhat backed by Mr Komolafe, who told Tribune Business that NHI had unfolded differently to VAT in the sense that the Government had made more information available on the latter at an earlier date.

Mr Komolafe said the work by the Chamber, and Coalition for Responsible Taxation, on VAT had raised expectations that a similar Coalition-style effort would occur over NHI.

Yet the Government’s failure to match the ‘VAT transparency’ on NHI left the private sector at a disadvantage in terms of organising its response, simply because there were so many unknowns.

Blaming the Government as opposed to the Chamber, Mr Komolafe said: “Having served as the insurance industry representative on both the VAT Advisory Committee and NHI Advisory Committee, the disparities are glaring.

“When compared in terms of organization, structure, collaboration and transparency, the NHI and VAT consultation and implementation processes are like night and day.”

Acknowledging that the BCCEC had the freedom to determine its priorities, the BIA chairman agreed that the insurance industry was well represented on the NHI committee. He added that the Chamber issued its own NHI position paper in May 2015, and had constantly spoken out on the issue rather than being silent.

The Coalition for Healthcare Reform was a body formed in 2006-2007 to respond to the first Christie administration’s NHI push. Encompassing industries ranging from the medical profession to auto dealers, it presented a unified business community front to the Government on the issue.

“The industry has reached out to the Chamber for support, and requested a coalition formation of sorts to make the business community aware of the ‘proposed model’ for NHI,” Ms Knowles said via e-mail.

“We invited the Chamber to the BIA NHI committee meeting in June 2015, and our meeting revolved around the proposed model, a need for a coalition like the VAT coalition. Again, nothing came of it.”

Ms Knowles shared some of the messages that passed between the Chamber and insurance industry to support the latter’s case.

Ms Lampkin, in an April 1, 2015, e-mail sent to Mr Osborne and Edison Sumner, the Chamber’s chief executive, said a BIA meeting held the same day had been “very interested in forming a coalition with the BCCEC” on NHI.

Ms Osborne, in response, recommended that “to get this ball rolling” Mr Komolafe, representing the BIA, meet with Mr Sumner.

This meeting occurred the following day, April 2, and Mr Sumner wrote: “We agreed that we will represent to our respective Boards that it is advisable that the BCCEC and BIA work together as a Coalition, along with the Medical Association, to form a consolidated position on NHI that we can present to the Government.

“We agreed to review and compare each other’s position papers on NHI, and work towards releasing a paper and announcing the partnership during the Chamber’s Conclave scheduled for 15-16 April.”

Ms Knowles then wrote to the Chamber on July 29, requesting its “voice in our quest to comprehend why our government is continuing the route Sanigest is proposing”.

She added: “I am concerned with the Sanigest and Ministry of Health thrust forward with no input from the private sector.

“The benefits are ambitious, the implementation plan time line is still ‘cloak and dagger’. All communications are ambiguous and scream ‘delusional’ and/or separation from the reality of our current system and economic standing.

“ Sirs, we require intervention not only for the industry’s sake but the sake of all private and public entities, most saliently the future of our country and its people.”

Ms Knowles continued: “This can, and never should be, political...... The Government cannot manage electricity, telecommunications, banking and hotels. Those are services that one can redeem and have windows for service corrections, but yet historically our governments have failed in those ventures.

“Unfortunately, healthcare does not have windows for correction and/or timelines to attend to. We already have a working system, and it appears that the Government model is to treat the insurance Industry in reverse; kill the private to create the public sector.”

Mr Sumner, in response, said the Chamber would call to discuss Ms Knowles’ e-mail that same week, saying all her points were “well taken into consideration”.

However, in a subsequent exchange of messages, Mr Sumner said the Chamber had not received a BIBA request for support “unless I missed it”. Ms Knowles responded by confirming this had been submitted.

Ms Knowles said that in the absence of a Coalition for Healthcare Reform, or something similar, a ‘Coalition of Professionals’ who had come to the same conclusions over the proposed NHI scheme had evolved.

“I don’t think it killed our fight,” she told Tribune Business of the absence of a unified private sector NHI body. “Everyone came to the same conclusion that Sanigest was feeding them incorrect information.

“But I think we have suffered because Sanigest has used the ‘divide and conquer’ method. They have been able to conduct meetings with different organisations separately.”

Ms Knowles added that she had been invited to attend bi-monthly meetings of a newly-formed government body, the NHI Consultative Committee, which is due to have its first session tomorrow.