Government overspent by $15 million on King Edward VII Memorial Hospital during the current fiscal year.The House of Assembly will now be asked to approve that figure, as well as an extra $2.25 million spending on health insurance within the Ministry of Health.It was part of a Supplementary Estimate for 2010/11 submitted yesterday, showing Government overspending of $22.70 million in the Finance Ministry and $17.28 million in Health.The hospital figure $15.02 million relates to the statutory hospital patients subsidy; Budget figures show Government estimated it would spend $79.79 million last year, but ended up spending $94.33 million.In Finance, $4.79 million extra was spent on Social Insurance for pensions and medical benefits of war veterans; and $17.9 million more than expected went on interest on debt.Last night Government gave this statement in response to the overspend: “The Health Insurance Act sets up subsidies which support vulnerable populations. The subsidies support children, the elderly, and those who cannot afford to pay.“The subsidies cover the full or nearly the full cost of the standard hospital benefit. The legislation requires the consolidated fund (essentially the Ministry of Health) to pay a hospital claim for anyone who is eligible for subsidy.“As a result, the Ministry is obligated to pay all legitimate claims submitted by the hospital for those persons who are eligible for the subsidy. We have generally budgeted in the region of $85 million to cover the cost of these claims, and typically the value of claims submitted has been more that we have budgeted which leads to the need for a supplementary budget.“This is the case for this financial year claims payable have exceeded the funds in the budget, so we have to apply to the Legislature for an increase in the budget.”Shadow Finance Minister Bob Richards said the total overspending of just under $40 million was another example of financial mismanagement by Government.“We are kind of getting used to this,” Mr Richards told The Royal Gazette.“It comes from poor budgeting and poor financial controls. This kind of unauthorised spending goes back to 2002. That’s totally unacceptable. There is no reason for that to happen.”The extra funds came out of Government’s current account; Ms Cox presented the Supplementary Estimate to the House on Monday.