Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Originally, I was going to ask questions to the Premier on supplementary health, but now I am going to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services some questions on supplementary health. In responding to Ms. Bisaro, the Minister of Health said that this new policy excludes nobody. Can the Minister please confirm for me that this new policy that is going to be proposed is not going to exclude anybody? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Mr. Speaker, this supplementary health excludes nobody for the non-aboriginal people. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I find that response kind of funny, because when I look at the Minister’s numbers in the presentations that were provided, I see 1,232 people that are being excluded from this policy. Pretty much anybody that has insurance is excluded. If you have insurance, you are excluded. Therefore, not everybody is covered by this policy. My biggest concern is not all 1,232, although I do have a concern for all of them, my biggest concern is for the 532 people that have insurance that are currently receiving specified medical condition support under supplemental health. By cutting those people off, we are putting a huge financial burden on people who are really sick, people who have specified conditions; Crohn’s, other conditions, cancer, all those types of things. I am wondering, how can we exclude those 532 people? My question is to the Minister. Why would we want to exclude those 532 people with specified conditions, catastrophic conditions, who have incredibly high costs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we have presented in our presentation on the website and in our public presentation, the profile of those who use our program under supplementary health and such. Mr. Speaker, we have designed a program to make sure that supplementary health benefits or extended health benefits are available to everybody in the Northwest Territories. You get them either by NHIB, NHB or third-party insurance. If you don’t have those, you fall under supplementary health benefits.
I know this is a point that people disagree with, but I am just trying to explain and I am being straightforward here. Our supplementary health benefits I said is a non-insured health benefits program. Government is saying we want to be the safety net for those who don’t have access elsewhere, so that nobody is excluded from having an extended health benefits program. But if you have insurance, yes, you have to have that insurance program and you have to rely on that insurance program. If you don’t have an insurance program, we will help you and we will give you access by your income. I know people may not agree with that, but that is the fact of the program. I keep repeating that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is a far bigger problem than the Minister is giving it any credit for. I met a young man yesterday. He has a chronic condition. It costs him $10,000 a month. If that individual, who just graduated from university goes and works for the GNWT, he gets 80 percent coverage under his insurance. Therefore, he is only going to be spending $2,000 a month out of pocket. He is probably going to start at about $50,000, so if he chose to say, okay, I don’t want to work for the GNWT, I am going to go somewhere where they don’t give me insurance, he is going to get all the money covered, which is $10,000 a month; 12 months, $120,000. It is going to cost us more money.
Our best interest and the best interest of everything is to get as many people on insurance as possible. If people are covered by insurance and then we provide some top-ups, it is going to save us a lot of money in the long run. That is consistent with the policy that came out on September 30, 2007, yet the Minister’s plan is going to be a disincentive for anybody to get insurance. Everybody is going to dump their insurance. Anybody making under $50,000 or $60,000 is going to dump their insurance. My question to the Minister is: where is the incentive for people to get insurance? What is the incentive to help us save some money so that we can provide some of our services? The only thing we are doing is increasing our costs and hurting our people.
Mr. Speaker, I am not going to disagree with the Member for what he is saying, so I hope he understands that I don’t reject everything he says, as he suggests, Mr. Speaker. That is a serious issue. That is a challenge for any insurance.
What we have right now is that under seniors policy where anybody who is over 60, you are covered 100 percent on everything. So people do drop insurance already. We are going to, on their policy, encourage people to get insurance. If we know they have a job that has insurance, we are going to encourage them to keep those insurance. We are going to ask them to go to their first insurance first, before they come here. The question we have to ask is we have a people right now who have no insurance at all. We have a system right now with the insurance who is dropping out of the insurance. I don’t know why that would be a factor that prevents us from looking at coming up with a program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the Minister hit it on the head. Let’s do something to find a solution for those people who don’t have insurance. That is our problem. Right now they are already covered for drugs, under supplemental or specified medical condition, so we need to find a way to get them dental and eye care. So let’s do that. But what she is doing is creating a program that is going to be a disincentive, she says. I don’t know how she is going to do it, but the Minister says we are going to encourage people to keep their insurance. People aren’t stupid, Mr. Speaker. If they look at the program and they go, oh, I’m going to get 100 percent coverage if I had no insurance but I am going to have to pay $2,000 a month if I have insurance, who is going to get insurance? Nobody. Therefore, our costs are going to go up. This is going to do nothing but increase our costs. The Minister didn’t address that. I would like the Minister to address how we are going to stop our costs from going up, because we created a program that is going to destroy insurance. How are we supporting insurance, Mr. Speaker?
Mr. Speaker, first of all, we are talking extreme examples in saying that somebody will pay $10,000 a month in insurance. The second thing, Mr. Speaker, is, yes, somebody could get their company insurance to pay for it or the government insurance to pay for it under our program. At the end of the day, there is individual responsibility to that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
