The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The National Insurance Board (NIB) has been rejected as the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme's administrator because its costs are simply too high, a Cabinet minister has revealed.

Dr Duane Sands, minister of health, who revealed the move at last week's Exuma Business Outlook conference, said: "Unfortunately, we do not like to pay bills. We do not like to pay taxes.

"We do not believe that any requirement of the Government is absolutely required to be paid, and hence we have a $385m exposure at the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation; a roughly half a billion exposure at the Bank of The Bahamas; at least two actuarial reviews which say that current benefit levels at NIB will be exhausted very soon."

The minister continued: "When we looked at the reformulation of NHI, we discounted immediately the role of NIB in administrating NHI. In large part, the cost of NIB and lack of participation in NIB puts the administrative cost at about 20 percent [of contribution income].

"For NHI to be universal, all-inclusive and mandatory, we have to have a cap of around five to six percent on administrative costs. NIB has not been able to hit that benchmark. If Cabinet agrees, we are going to roll out NHI through the private sector.

"It is a sad statement of where we are today, but the idea that we create another entitlement programme which Bahamians wish to benefit from but aren't willing to pay is something we have to separate ourselves from."

Dr Sands also revealed that the Government plans to roll-out NHI's catastrophic care plans, costing "as little as $1,000 per year", within the next three to four weeks.

That amount, he said, will be borne by the Government of The Bahamas, the employer and the employee, with contributions on a monthly basis by the employee of less than $20 or no more than two per cent of a person's salary.

The Minnis administration budgeted $20 million for NHI in the 2018/2019 fiscal year. The government had budgeted $40 million for NHI in the 2017/2018 budget. The Christie administration introduced the enrollment and primary care phase of NHI on May 1, 2017, although there was no public insurer in place. The former administration had also originally committed $20-$25 million to cover catastrophic treatments under its $100 million NHI primary care roll-out.