My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services and are based on my Member’s statement from earlier this afternoon. I was wondering if the Minister of Health could tell me what, if any, financial analysis was prepared and utilized by Cabinet to help them make an informed decision and responsible decision to implement the Supplementary Health Benefits Program announced on December 18th, 2008.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Mr. Speaker, it’s general knowledge that these program changes were consulted on, discussed, debated in this House and outside this House between 2003 and 2007. The policies were changed in September of 2007. I do not have all of the calculations on what came about to achieving that. I have been responsible for implementing those, but the policy objective was not a cost-cutting measure and it is not necessary to make sure that we stay within whatever is budgeted under the Supplementary Health Program. So it is wrong to say we are making these changes on the backs of the seniors. That is not correct.
We still seek to cover the vast majority of the seniors. We seek to cover those who have chronic conditions, who have children with disabilities. We seek to cover them and provide them with the assistance. What the policy intent is saying is while we appreciate that we need to cover seniors, we need to cover those with chronic conditions, we need to add in an extra factor which is one’s ability, an ability to pay as one of the criteria. It is a policy statement on the part of the government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thanks for that response. I was kind of curious as to what kind of financial analysis was done and presented to Cabinet to help them make a decision, an informed decision. Clearly there was none. Just as a note, I disagree. I believe this program change is occurring on the backs of the seniors as well as those individuals with family members with chronic conditions. You are taking money out of one pocket to put it in another. So since I am not going to get an answer to that first question, I’ll ask my second question.
When the Minister presented the proposed program to Cabinet in 2008, did the Minister include a breakdown of the possible ramifications of implementation? By that I mean things such as the cost of a mass exodus of seniors leaving the Northwest Territories, the $22,000 transfer payment, the income taxes they pay, as well as the goods and services they buy and the services they provide by way of volunteering. As well, did she include or identify any costs related specific to the entire system as a result of more people choosing to go into the hospitals for care rather than staying in their homes, because under supplementary health as it exists now, they can stay in their homes and receive treatment in this system in order to make it so they don’t have to pay. They are going to go into the hospital, so it’s going to cost the system more. Did the Minister provide that information to Cabinet? Because I believe that would have helped them make an informed decision, which clearly they did not. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, obviously he didn’t catch my first answer. An analysis was done, policy approved in 2007. Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you that our government’s objective is not to encourage people to move away, not to incur extra costs because people are not taking drugs they need or medical supplies. We are committed to improving this program. We will cover the vast majority of our population who need the support from the government and that’s what the seniors told us during the consultation between 2003 and ’07; that we need to make the program generous for seniors. We have tried to do that and we will make sure we will do that so as we work to improve the program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Before I go on, I am just going ask Members to respect the amount of time that we have for question period and the opportunity for all Members to ask questions. The only way we are going to do that is if we shorten up the preambles and the answers to the questions. So I would ask Members to respect that. Supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Clearly it is not the motive of the Cabinet to chase them away, but their actions are, in fact, going to chase people away. The announcement in 2007, you haven’t mentioned any financial analysis. You keep saying analysis. You are now moving forward and you’ve indicated that you are going to do consultation. You indicated that you have done consultation in the past, which clearly was more of an information session. Can you tell me how this time around you are going to do meaningful consultation with the stakeholders? That doesn’t mean you are just going to tell me you are going to consult. What are you going to do so we are actually engaging these individuals?
Mr. Abernethy, I would remind you to address your questions through the Chair.
Sorry.
Mr. Speaker, Members have been provided with information on the consultation that took place between 2003 and 2007. I agree with the Member, I know how to agree to agree, and agree to disagree. I understand that Members feel those consultations were not the way they should have been. That’s not to say the consultations didn’t take place, because there was lots of discussions with the NGOs and seniors’ groups about how to change the Supplementary Health Benefits Program. Going forward, as I have stated in my Minister’s statement, in answer to Ms. Bisaro’s question and to other Members and to the discussions I had with the NWT Seniors executive society, executive of the society, I am committed to doing a meaningful consultation. We have learned a lot that we need to address since this was announced in the two months, that I was not aware of before and we will go through them and we will have a meaningful two-way exchange on how to work through this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final, short supplementary , Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in your announcement, you indicated, the Minister indicated that she’s going to be releasing the program, the revised program on September 1, 2009. In my Member’s statement I indicated that I don’t believe that’s a reasonable timeline. I was wondering if I could get the Minister to commit to extending the implementation date to April 1, 2010, at the very earliest and that during the research and facilitation…Sorry, and doing the research and facilitating real consultation with affected stakeholders which will result in an acceptable Supplementary Health Benefits Program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I believe the objective of the Members and the seniors in the gallery and everybody I have talked to is to make sure this program is good qualitatively and it’s not, the time is not the most important thing; it’s that we do the right thing. We are committed to do the right thing and I have agreed with the Seniors’ Society and the NGOs that I have been talking to, that we will have roundtables, we will have workshops, because these are very complicated issues and we will make sure that we do not cause undue hardship to those people who need our assistance and that we will have meaningful consultation. The end date is not written in stone. I don’t understand. Members have been asking me for the last six weeks to extend this, change this. I do this and the difference between…I don’t know. I have been open, approachable, I have been accommodating. I don’t understand what the big deal is about the date. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for the Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
