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 last few days and months.
So my question to the Minister is, as I mentioned in my statement, there are those residents who, under the proposed plan, will end up with excessive medical costs in any one-month period because they have third-party insurance and don’t have any access to supplementary health benefit. So I’d like to ask the Minister where is the safety net for those residents who have third-party insurance and have to endure excessive medical costs. Thank you.
The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And we have heard that concern. As the Members might remember, the first time when we came out with this proposal, the implementation plan, was that there would be two types of different programs and the income cut-off was $45,000. Everybody told us that that was not workable and we have to make a more flexible program. This is why we have revised the program so that income threshold starts at $50,000 for a single person and about $70,000 for a couple. But if you have children, the threshold goes up, up to the point of $170,000 to $190,000.
Mr. Speaker, no other program across the country accommodates the fact that we have needs for the families. The fact of the matter is the Member says we need to look after the children and the elderly. Yes, we do. The Supplementary Health Program right now does not have dental benefits or vision care benefits for children. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
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 go back and ask the Minister. You have heard the concern of people who are going to have excessive medical costs. Will you respond to that and amend the policy? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as the Member knows, the government has presented the latest proposal. We are meeting with the committee. I was advised that we will have more meetings on that. If there are specific issues that we could work on to improve what we have, we still have time to do that, Mr. Speaker.
I just want to note that, in the NWT, I know we could always come up with the outliers, but on average in the Northwest Territories claims are about 2,816 claims are less than $5,000, 195 claims are a little over $5,000 and about 86 are less than $10,000. So, yes, we could always look at outliers and anomalies and say we do have challenges that we need to look at. But for the vast majority of claimants, the proposal we have laid out would look after many of them and most of them and we will include so many people who are currently excluded into the plan. We have to consider that as something that is positive. You can’t just talk about people who are protesting the loudest. We do need to listen to the silent majority too, Mr. Speaker.
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 possibility. It is not a lot of people, but it is some people. Do we want to marginalize those people and put them into bankruptcy? I don’t think so.
The Minister advised us yesterday and today that Cabinet has considered all possible options in terms of preparing this proposal for changes to the Supplementary Health Benefits Program. I would like to know whether or not or where are the results of that analysis. There should be a sheet that has pros and cons that compares one option to a second option to a third option to a fourth option which leads to a considered decision. I would like to ask the Minister where the results of the analysis that was done by the department and/or Cabinet and will she share those results with Members. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we have provided the information that we have been using. If the Member has that information that she would like to get, I would be happy to accommodate that. I don’t know what she means by... I guess she is talking about a table with 100 different ideas.
Mr. Speaker, as I have said already, we are not inventing a new wheel. This is a commonly used model everywhere in the country. We have designed our program more fairly and generous than anything in the market, other than Nunavut. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will try to put my request in words that perhaps the Minister can understand. When one has a number of options, six or 10, one lists them on a page and you then go across the page on the top and you put this is a positive, this is a negative, this is a positive, this is a negative. You then look at each option and you evaluate. You could even give them a number and assign a number to them so that you come out of each option with a plus or a minus 500, minus 600, et cetera. That then allows you to take the options to six or 10 options that you have and rank them from number one to number 10 or one to six. Was that done in this case? Where are the results of the analysis that the department did? That is what I am asking for.
Mr. Speaker, I think the better way for me to provide the information that she is looking for is if she could give me the questions.
Mr. Speaker, we looked at the premiums. We looked at the deductibles, using the deductibles. We looked at different income models. I know the general public out there want to know what analysis have you done to do universal versus charging cold payment. Mr. Speaker, we have done that. If the Member wants to have that information, I would be happy to provide that to her. Thank you.
The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
