Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to provide further details on the process that we are taking to implement the recommendations from the Supplementary Health Benefits Joint Working Group surrounding updates to the existing Extended Health Benefits Program.

The recommendations that were made by the Joint Working Group require varying levels of additional research and planning before implementation. We plan to move forward as quickly as we can while ensuring we have done our homework.

We will immediately begin working with the Department of Human Resources, and later on, other employers in the NWT...

Mr. Speaker, yes, as a matter of fact, we are communicating right now to sit down together and to less politicize this issue and have the facts prevail and have my officials sit with YACL and work out a resolution. I say it again, that we will find a resolution to provide assistance to YACL. Thank you.

The Member is going into the details of which we have to still work on. That’s what I am saying in saying that we need to look at how we implement the recommendations made in the Joint Working Group. Part of it is to review parity and equity between the three programs. We need to figure out how do we encourage people to get third-party insurance, how do we encourage employers to get third-party insurance. We want that to be the first option, but we need to work out how that can be done. The Member made those suggestions in our review process and there are other suggestions, but those are...

These are important items. We take these recommendations very seriously. No, I will not be announcing on Monday that we are implementing these. I agree with the Members that these need work. We have knowledge in the department and I will be coming back on Monday to set a time frame and the process on when we’re going to get this work done and how we can work with the other side on implementing them. I will be consulting with the Members and sharing information and work through these ticket items, because those are important and we want to get them done.

I meant simply by that under supp health benefits, as it exists now -- not supp health -- extended health benefits, people with chronic conditions or requirements, they get paid right now. They are covered right now under the existing policy. So the catastrophic drug coverage question came in because of the changes that were proposed, but that’s gone. We said that this morning. So there is no need. We have the most generous Health Benefits Program in the North and they are all covered under the existing policy. Thank you.

Those are the changes that I will be coming forward with next week with a time frame and short-term, mid-term and long-term implementation plans, what we need to do and work together on in order to implement the changes that were suggested in the Joint Working Group and where we could move forward.

The recommendation that we have that we need to look at it is to encourage people to get third-party insurance and use it first. So we need to look at that. We will be coming back with a work plan on how long we need to take to look at those. We hope to be able to do that sooner than later and what best way there is to encourage people to do that. We will be making those proposals. Thank you.

I do agree with the Member that the most important pillar of the Supplementary Health Policy that we rescinded is the fact that we would have been able to expand the coverage to the working poor as of next Monday. That aspect was the most immediate and present Anti-Poverty Strategy that we had that we are not able to implement. I agree with the Member that we need to look at that. We’re going to look at that in a package with all the other suggestions that the Joint Working Group had asked us to work on and Cabinet is committed to looking at that.

Of course, in any changes, we work with the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Where they are impacted, one of the things in the statement is to look at all of the extended health benefits programs, Metis Health and NIHB, to find some sort of parity. Now, that would take some analysis and work and where it’s possible and appropriate, we will work with other governments to keep them in the loop. Thank you.

With all due respect, I categorically reject any notion that our department or myself as the Minister are not giving out the information. All the information was out there. The issue with the changes with supp health is that people just didn’t want it. It wasn’t the lack of information. So, Mr. Speaker, we will work as we have always with the Members on the other side and give detailed information.

We need to do more work on how we are going to implement the pharmaceutical strategy. We need to do more work on how we encourage people to get third-party insurance. We need to work on how we...