The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Free National Movement Chairman Darron Cash said yesterday that Prime Minister Perry Christie is playing “hocus pocus” games with the public to “buy some more time” until National Health Insurance is ready.

In a press release, Mr Cash said Mr Christie’s sole interest at this time “is in saving face and perpetrating hocus-pocus magic designed to get people to see something that is not there”.

Mr Cash said The Bahamas needs a combination of both healthcare reform and health insurance reform. He said if done properly, a government’s decision to pursue either one of these objectives “would be time and money well spent”.

He added: “Sadly, even as the prime minister pursues his taxation without reformation strategy, his plan for NHI is not ready for prime time. The prime minister knows it, but he lacks the courage to admit it. He has defaulted to what he does best – political stunts and empty reckless promises.

“Now that Prime Minister Christie has assumed responsibility for leading the NHI initiative, things have gone from bad to worse. His work on NHI itself is not to be taken seriously. The process has lacked leadership from the optimistic beginning to the current discombobulated disaster where not even his ministers know who’s on first.

“Determined to save face and stop the embarrassment, the prime minister insists that registration for NHI will commence in January 2016. That effort is nothing but a PR, smoke and mirrors, a ploy. It is a stunt. The start of the registration process is not the start of health insurance, and the act of registration does not immediately mean greater access to healthcare. It is a complete distortion for the government to suggest that something meaningful will happen when registration starts or even shortly thereafter.”

Mr Cash said even if the government manages to pull off the first phase of NHI, their actions to date “have not inspired confidence” from the people.

He added that public statements from officials in the private healthcare sector suggest that the government is “completely indifferent and unresponsive” to the industry’s concerns.

“The next point that suggests that registration is nothing but a gimmick is the apparent failure of the government to use the tools already at its disposal. If the government really wanted to inspire confidence, it could use the wealth of information available through the National Insurance Board to pre-register thousands of Bahamians.

“NIB is able to use that information to ‘pre-register’ Bahamians in need and almost simultaneously use that information to enter into win-win arrangements with private physicians to manage the health/treatment side of the prescription drug plan.”

There have been calls from the private sector and the FNM for the government to delay NHI implementation, however government officials have said they are moving ahead with the January 2016 roll out.

However, the Christie administration has faced criticism for not disclosing the overall cost of NHI or explaining exactly what benefits package will be offered in the first phases of the system.

Insurance industry insiders have also expressed fears of widespread job losses when NHI comes on stream.