Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For an hour this morning I was very pleased and very optimistic. When the Minister came out and said they’ve rescinded the Supplementary Health Benefits Policy that was great news. Unfortunately, since then I’ve heard a bunch of my colleagues ask some questions and I’ve heard responses from the Minister, and that optimism is pretty much gone. Mostly from one statement.
The Minister said that the problem with supp health is that people just don’t want changes to the supp health. That is not true. That is not true at all. I’ve heard people talk about changes. People do want changes to supp health. People who have catastrophic conditions are concerned about that. People want people with low income to be covered. I think the Minister has missed the point.
Coming to where we are today, the Minister has indicated that she’s going to make further announcements regarding implementation to these changes next week. Great, but we don’t know what changes those are. Could the Minister tell me what those changes are? What changes are going to start being implemented?
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Members, it sounds like they’re hung up on that sentence in the Minister’s statement that said I’ll be making announcements regarding the implementation of these changes. What changes? What changes are the three paragraphs prior to that sentence? Changes: to require the use of third-party insurance as the first option; a pharmaceutical strategy to include generic drugs, drug pricing and efficiencies, and cost containment; a pharmaceuticals procurement distribution and access; also changes to eliminate grandfathering that happened in 2004. May I remind all the Members on the other side, those were the exact suggestions that were made in the Joint Working Group report and the communication.
That’s what I wanted the Minister to say again. I know she’s already said it and the answers are yes, yes, yes, and yes. The problem is that each one of those are so broad and so big that before anything can be implemented, some research has to be done around those on how we’re going to implement it. What aspects of each of those are going to require implementation today, tomorrow, and in the future? To tell me that they’re going to start implementing something right away seems pretty premature to me.
That’s the point I think we’re trying to make. We don’t oppose what you’re saying, Minister Lee. We support it. We agree with those things. What we want is to make sure that information is researched and how we do those things is done. I don’t see that here. Is the Minister, when she’s talking about an implementation plan, is she talking about the implementation of a work plan and how we’re going to research those things, design those things and implement those things, or does she already have something she wishes to implement? It’s a subtle difference but it’s an important difference.
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.
Optimism is starting to creep back up. That is basically what we needed to hear, is that this is a work plan and not an implementation plan. A work plan may have implementation steps further down. We can’t implement things without it.
I want to talk to another statement that the Minister made that caused me some concern. Based on where we are today, we’re status quo, which is unfortunate but it is what it is. We do have to move forward on finding some ways to help the low-income people and I think that should continue to be a priority. But the Minister said that if we didn’t rescind this policy, that she was going to make changes on Monday for the low-income people. We’ll check Hansard tomorrow, but I’m pretty sure she said we would implement on Monday. I’m curious, what would she be implementing on Monday? Because I, on this side of the House, have never seen any program, policies or procedures about anything that the Minister was planning to implement on Monday. When she said that, quite frankly, I was very surprised. Thank you.
The Supplementary Health Policy that was rescinded would have come into effect on Monday. That’s what I said. But it’s not. It’s gone. I said that.
On Monday I will be making an announcement about how we move forward to look at the recommendations made by the Joint Working Group. What I was saying was had that Supplementary Health Benefits Policy not been rescinded, we would have been able to have coverage for those working poor that we were trying to extend the coverage to. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Your final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
That’s my point, Mr. Speaker. The Minister was talking about implementing something for the working poor on Monday and, yes, it’s not going to happen, which is unfortunate, but that’s where we ended up as a result of the rescinding of this policy.
My point is still there, Mr. Speaker. We, on this side of the House, never saw anything about any program that was going to be implemented on Monday. How was the Minister planning to… When the working group report is tabled this afternoon, it doesn’t say anything about implementing any program on Monday for the working poor. So what program was this and where’s it coming from? It’s another surprise. It’s not going to happen, granted, but it’s just another example of what is she talking about, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, he’s got to calm down. All that is saying is that we know, we’ve been talking about this 2007 Supplementary Health Policy for the last three years, and that’s been delayed. The implementation of it has been delayed and delayed and delayed. Had we not done anything, it was set to come into effect on November 1st. The important point here is that we are moving forward. We are accepting the report. We want to work together and we will share the information. We have to work together on how to bring this third-party insurance and pharmaceuticals strategy and all of the recommendations, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
