Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I’d like to start by asking the Minister what is the cost of administering the current supplementary health system and what’s the anticipated cost of the new system under the Minister’s current proposal? Can she compare and contrast those costs for me? Thank you.
The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have the number in front of me, but we have a number of staff that run the Supplementary Health Benefits Program. We believe that the new program would cost $200,000 to $300,000 to administer. Thank you.
I have other beliefs on what the cost of the system will be and I think the Minister is aware of those. The current system provides equal coverage, full coverage to both Metis, seniors and non-aboriginal seniors. Under the new proposals, I’ve heard from the Minister that will no longer be so. In fact, we will no longer give full coverage to non-aboriginal seniors. Can the Minister explain to me how that can possibly be seen as not being divisive, a racially divisive policy? Thank you.
I don’t believe there is anything I can say that would make people change their mind on that issue. The fact of the matter is we do have an NIHB program in this country and in Canada that the federal government funds. The GNWT funds Metis health benefits that is on par with NIHB. The changes we are trying to make are because we have a non-aboriginal program that excludes a whole bunch of non-aboriginal people that need us, and that’s where my focus is. We are coming up with a program that is as generous and as fair as possible to cover all non-aboriginal people into that program. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’ll just remind the Minister that our Elders Parliament was clear on that question and I refer her to their sage insights on that issue. I’d like to ask what input from the Minister’s stakeholder panel did she include in the current proposals. Thank you.
Last the Joint Leadership Council met with all of the health chairs we did an in-depth briefing on this supplementary health benefits and we talked about the pros and cons of this in our health care system. The department staff met and wrote to NGOs, the seniors’ societies, the seniors’ groups and other groups such as the Centre for Northern Families or Persons with Disabilities. So we had a group of NGOs that looked at the proposal, they gave their feedback and we have incorporated those. Thank you.
Your final question, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do have a final question, and I just want to preface by saying I think the Minister and Cabinet must surely be aware that the answers we’re hearing are totally inadequate and the main point behind all of this discussion today is that we’re not there yet. We need to go back to the drawing board on this. The Members are speaking and the public has spoken.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me, given the complexity and administrative challenges we can expect with the current proposals, given that people that are covered by third-party insurance may very well drop it under the current proposals, and given that we’re likely to cause financial and economically independent families to move to income support, how does the Minister expect this will contribute to sustainability of the supplementary health program and our government? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we have a proposal before us and we have an opportunity to work on that. I believe, as I’ve stated already, this is a difficult issue and it does take some courage and resolve on our part to make changes, Mr. Speaker. We cannot say that cover the working poor, cover those 2,200 people, find the money to do it, raise taxes, go without. We can’t continue to say that, Mr. Speaker. The Members here have an obligation to listen to everybody as well. I keep being told that I need to listen to everybody. Yes, we are listening to everybody and we have to make decisions. We are here to make decisions and sometimes it’s the hard decisions, sometimes they are really tough for the short term but it might have a better long-term effect. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, we need to be mindful of the fact that we have low income families who are having to decide about getting their next set of glasses for their kids, going to a dental appointment for their kids, and we have no means of accommodating those. And the fact of the matter is, right now as the supplementary program exists, it encourages people who can afford insurance to opt out of them because we put no responsibility on those people to go to the private insurance and we top up people who have insurance who have high income while we are ignoring the poor.
Now, Mr. Speaker, surely we could do something; work together in the short term so that we can address this and not say study this thing for another four years, seven years, 10 years, and let the world go by. The fact of the matter is, there are lot of things that we do for seniors. We cover home care in our seniors program, which is not covered elsewhere. So I think we have a good package to work with. I’m looking forward to working with the Members to see how we can improve this. We need to balance what the people’s needs are. Thank you.
The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
