Photo By Akil Simmons Premier Dr. Ewart Brown

The following is a continuation of a report on the debate on the Health Insurance Amendment (No. 2) Act 2009 in the House of Assembly last Friday. The first part of the report appeared in Saturday's newspaper.

Premier Dr. Ewart Brown then addressed the House. He praised the previous government (UBP) for introducing a system whereby workers paid into a healthcare scheme.

However he said it did not go far enough, particularly in terms of lack of tertiary overseas care and no coverage after the first 30 days of retirement.

"It was revolutionary at the time to require employers to provide coverage for employees. It was a stroke of genius because every country on the planet wishes it had done that," said Dr. Brown.

"It was good coverage for working people but we know there were some shortcomings. Every system has those."

Commenting on the subsequent introduction of HIP, he said: "HIP was bare bones, no fancy coverage or overseas coverage.

"These people had minimal coverage and sometimes when they had to have treatment overseas they could end up using all of their life savings," he said.

"This was a flaw in the coverage of our people and so in December 2007, the Progressive Labour Party included in its platform a promise and a plan to cover, in a decent way, seniors in this country.

"We said FutureCare will cover everyone, we did not say everyone at the same time."

Dr. Brown said although the late Nelson Bascome, as Health Minister, had explained the scheme would be phased in, he was still confronted by some seniors who complained "they were out in the cold", with no insurance.

"So what does a sensitive Government do," said Dr. Brown.

"They brought legislation to this House and that is what this Government is doing."

He added: "I believe the Honourable Member's (Grant Gibbons) presentation was flawed.

"He made a terrible error, by simply multiplying by three. You can't multiply simply because you have three times as many people coming in. It's not statistically sound, just to multiply."

Dr. Gibbons interjected: "If you have three times the number of people enrolled in something, it's roughly three times the cost."

But Dr. Brown said: "It's statistically dangerous to assume the second set of people who come into FutureCare will carry the same statistical likelihood of disease."

The Premier added: "I heard the Honourable Member say it's not affordable. It's the position of my Government not to afford not to do it.

"How dare we come into this House and tell the public of Bermuda that it's going to cost too much for seniors to be cared for.

"It is affordable because the country will afford it.

"There are some people who believe there should be that old breakdown in medical care, that one which said only certain people can be covered and go to Boston.

"But now the average Joe can go too and that never happened under the previous Government. More Bermudians now have tertiary care than ever before because this Government made it possible for the average Bermudian to have tertiary care."

Dr. Brown also took issue with Dr. Gibbons' comment that Government should "come clean" over the FutureCare benefits package.

"Would the Honourable Members try to refrain from such terminology. The term 'come clean' implies something. It is all part of the same line which caused a part of the Reply to the Throne Speech to be struck clean from the record last week.

"We don't have a problem doing that (giving more information) but it is nothing to do with coming clean."

He said: "We are proud to have been able to introduce FutureCare. We know it's not been totally rolled out but the day will come when every Bermudian over the age of 65 who wishes to engage in FutureCare will have the opportunity to do so and healthcare will stand not as a privilege but as a right."

John Barritt, Opposition spokesman on legislative reform, said when FutureCare was first introduced, "people were hoping for something more".

"We are now developing today a two-tier healthcare scheme for seniors, those on HIP with its shortcomings, and those fortunate enough on FutureCare," he said.

"Of course there's going to be some unhappiness.

"Then we've got those out there on private insurance schemes, and people do pay and pay handsomely."

He said: "We can't be sure the workforce will increase, we've got zero growth population and we can't go into making some outlandish or overly ambitious assumptions."

He added the UBP had "a number of amendments" it would propose to the legislation.

Patricia Gordon-Pamplin, Shadow Works and Engineering Minister, said: "You can't stand on a soap box and make promises where you don't know where the money is coming from."

She agreed with the re-introduction of HIP for those without insurance, but called the move a "U-turn."

"We should never have been in this position."

Shadow Finance Minister Bob Richards agreed, saying: "I can't conceive of a plan that implants FutureCare, and the next step is to reimpose the plan they intended to do away with."

He said that the Government needed to stop blaming the insurance companies for causing the problems.

"You'll never have an optimal agreement with the private sector if you brand them as scapegoats."

Mr. Roban defended FutureCare, saying: "The Opposition has to move away from the idea that the programme had failed.

"FutureCare at its core is not why we're here. We're here to deal with the situation at hand."

The Minister said that the local Insurance providers had a responsibility to the public, saying that they work almost as a monopoly on the Island.

The Bill was passed unanimously following a single amendment, proposed independently by both Mr. Barritt and Mr. Roban regarding the make up of the Health Insurance Committee, which will take control over regulating FutureCare from the Bermuda Health Council.

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