The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune

THE Tribune has a long and proud editorial history of speaking its mind and doing so with conviction and reason. It is therefore no surprise to me that, even in areas where we disagree (such as healthcare funding for Bahamians) such disagreement arises from genuine differences of perspective that merit honest discussion. By contrast, The Nassau Guardian (despite having some fine reporters) is editorially little more than an FNM propaganda pamphlet. Worse still, it consistently editorialises against publicly-funded healthcare without declaring its parent company’s vested interest in the private insurance industry.

It is therefore in a wholly constructive light that I must respectfully disagree with your Editorial of June 3, wherein you likened public health services to a business which, unless it charges customers at the point of sale, will soon go out of business.

To be truthful, that is not a fair analogy. Healthcare is a basic human right which every society, from the most basic tribes, instinctively applies collective energy to provide to its members. Responsible politicians in countries like The Bahamas, which is at the higher end of the economic scale (and whose population spends, per capita, more on healthcare than anyone else in the region) naturally seek to channel spending on the health of its citizenry in a way that most benefits the population broadly.

Currently in The Bahamas, that spending is very badly channelled, in that for every dollar spent by Bahamians on their healthcare, a good portion goes into sustaining a wealthy insurance and medical industry. Some of it goes to reinsurers overseas. Governments can therefore do a lot to cut out some of the middlemen, by simply pooling the resources already being spent and applying economies of scale to the benefit of the public.

Moreover, although The Bahamas government operates on a revenue structure that is both regressive (it pressures the rich far less than the poor) and highly concessionary (you reported $1.3 billion in tax concessions to investors just last week), it nonetheless collects around 2 billion dollars annually in operating revenues. The services it provides or fails to provide from that revenue reflect its priorities. However, by definition, none of them are ‘free’. We all pay for them by our taxes, especially the poor.

In this regard, a far more poignant and appropriate analogy to our healthcare conundrum would be the operation of the police force, which is another area of public expenditure deemed critical to the most basic of our needs. Imagine a citizen coming home one night to armed intruders, calling the police (who would naturally respond with the most advanced weaponry, manpower and equipment available), then, as they are leaving with the culprits in handcuffs, produce an invoice and demand payment on the basis that the homeowner can clearly afford to pay for the use of public services.

That is the healthcare situation in The Bahamas today, and the only reason for it is because of the priorities of those who govern us. It is fiction to call something ‘free’ that is being funded by revenues from the public treasury, especially while the government fails to tax corporate or personal income and continues to give irrational tax concessions to wealthy investors.

ANDREW ALLEN

Nassau,

June 3, 2019.