Wendy Bisaro

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for her comments. She indicated that she has heard the concern that has been expressed by a number of Members about people who are going to endure excessively high medical costs. My question, I guess then is: is she going to respond to that in terms of this particular program? Is there going to be a change to the program? She states that there is no other program in Canada that deals with residents the way that we do, but I would say to her, as well, there is no other program in Canada that leaves people with excessive medical costs out to dry. I would like to...

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to welcome a constituent, Larry Adamson who is here today listening to the Members’ statements and up behind me is Jackie Walsh, assistant to the president of Union of Northern Workers, and Barb Wyness who is the public relations officer with UNW, both constituents of Frame Lake. Welcome to the Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I expressed my concerns about the implementation of the Supplementary Health Benefit Policy and suggested that it will create a new class of working poor: the medically bankrupted. It’s eminently clear that Cabinet must be provided with a few real life examples of the effect this policy will have on our residents in order for them to understand the magnitude of the problems that this policy will cause.

So the first example: An MLA who, of course, has third-party insurance, similar to all GNWT employees, and who needs a drug to treat a specific...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services.

The items listed below are suggestions gathered from Members and NWT residents for efficiencies or alternate funding of the proposed changes to the Supplementary Health Benefits Program

Will the Minister provide me with a list which shows the pros and cons of each suggestion and that provides the ranking given to each option by the Department of Health and Social Services or the Cabinet?

increase income tax;

devise a form of government-assisted, third-party insurance for low income families;

use graduating...

I guess I don’t really have a response to that and I’ll just leave it at that. I think we could argue the philosophy in that article, on the comparisons in the article, for quite some time.

I need to ask the Minister, again, I think I’ve asked this before but there are any number of different ways that this coverage of people who are not currently covered could get funded. I want to know from the Minister why that hard work and that analysis was not done. There was hard work required to find the different way to do it that didn’t marginalize certain people and I don’t believe that’s been done...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few more questions, as well, for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I’d like to follow up on the questions that I’d asked previously. One of the town hall meetings was held here in Yellowknife and during that town hall meeting -- actually, no, that’s not true, it was at a meeting that was held at the Baker Centre -- one of the attendees at that meeting stated in reference to the proposed program that’s put forward that the government can do better than this. Somebody else then suggested that this is probably the best that this government can do, that...

Mr. Speaker, the Minister in her answer said that she is going to listen to committee’s concerns and I can advise being on that committee that there are many concerns and the Minister will be getting a summary of our concerns shortly, I believe. She said that she is willing to work on it. That is positive, but I really wonder whether or not when she hears committee’s concerns, she is actually going to act on it. She also said that this is going to apply to the vast majority of people. My concern is for that minority who are going to become medically bankrupt. The Minister is ignoring that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I want to follow up a bit on my statement today and from yesterday as well.

You know, it’s said, Mr. Speaker, that a society is judged by its treatment of children, the sick and the elderly. I think we in the NWT want to be judged well. We want to feel that our society is a good one and I think we put programs in place to look after our children, our sick and our elderly. So it leads to the idea of a safety net, which the Minister has referred to quite a number of times in our discussion over...

The Minister says she has rejected all the possibilities except the one before us. She’s saying trust us, our analysis is perfect. Well, I can’t accept that. If an analysis of all the options has been done, where are the results of that work? Why has it not been presented to Regular Members so we can evaluate the decision for ourselves?

I have to ask again today the question I posed yesterday: how will this government help residents who face huge financial burdens due to medical conditions costs? Where is the safety net that the Minister keeps referring to for these medically bankrupted...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I asked an awful lot of questions in my statement and I’d like to go back to some of those questions and ask some of them of the Minister of Health and Social Services, to try and get some answers to some of those questions.

In order to try and, again, get some clarity for my constituents, I’d like to ask the Minister why such a divisive Supplementary Health Benefits Policy, dated September 2007, is being implemented. Thank you.