Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Members and the public for their interest in the Supplementary Health Benefits Program and Catastrophic Drug Costs Program. Mr. Speaker, since the details of the changes were announced last December, we have received numerous calls and questions regarding the programs. Comments were at times supportive of the direction we are taking with this new program, as a number of people will benefit from this new program.

The principle of providing benefits to those most vulnerable and who have no coverage has been well...

Mr. Speaker, it’s general knowledge that these program changes were consulted on, discussed, debated in this House and outside this House between 2003 and 2007. The policies were changed in September of 2007. I do not have all of the calculations on what came about to achieving that. I have been responsible for implementing those, but the policy objective was not a cost-cutting measure and it is not necessary to make sure that we stay within whatever is budgeted under the Supplementary Health Program. So it is wrong to say we are making these changes on the backs of the seniors. That is not...

Mr. Speaker, it’s hard to explain all this. The Health Care Program is a demand-driven service. I can’t tell you, as the Minister of Health, who is exactly on the system on any given day. Let’s just be logical. How many people are in the hospital? Well, I guess we could do that. We could do it today, take an inventory, but there are lots of people accessing this program and for all kinds of different reasons with all kinds of family make-ups and stuff.

What I want to say is, as the Minister, what you look at is the policy intent and policy objective, and cost neutral does not mean that we have...

I have asked the department to look at that process to see if we could borrow from that. I’m prepared to make a commitment to the Members here, that I will come back with an outline of how we propose to do the consultation and where the meetings will be and how they’re going to take place for the next little while. So consultation and consultative approach as we go forward to improve the changes are very much at the table and I’m prepared to work with the Members and the public to do that.

I believe my statement was that we would keep the policy intent, which is to make this policy more fair and equitable. Income tests are a mechanism to achieve that, but obviously all the details are up for discussion. So we will go to the public with what we have learned, we will ask the public about what we need to consider, what we need to change. I have learned a lot in this process. I have made it clear from day one, December 19th, when I got the first e-mail, I learned new things and I responded to everybody, saying thank you for giving me that information, I will take that into...

I believe the objective of the Members and the seniors in the gallery and everybody I have talked to is to make sure this program is good qualitatively and it’s not, the time is not the most important thing; it’s that we do the right thing. We are committed to do the right thing and I have agreed with the Seniors’ Society and the NGOs that I have been talking to, that we will have roundtables, we will have workshops, because these are very complicated issues and we will make sure that we do not cause undue hardship to those people who need our assistance and that we will have meaningful...

The fact is we do not have universal coverage for supplementary health right now. We don’t. So we’re not moving away from universal coverage. The whole point is the impetus of changing this is the fact that we have a group of working poor, as we call them, or low-income families, or if you have a job that doesn’t have third-party insurance. So the self-employed. We have a group of people who are not covered under the existing system. So it is not accurate to say that we have a universal program. We have a universal program for those who are over 60. We have a universal program for those who...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can advise you and the Members that that is in fact one of the main topics that were under discussion between myself and the executive of the NWT Seniors’ Society. As I stated in my Member’s statement, we are committed to doing consultation with the stakeholders. The Seniors’ Society has suggested that maybe we should have a workshop so there can be back-and-forth exchange.

I have learned since this program had been announced last December that the families and individuals in the North come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, with all kinds of unique health needs and...

Mr. Speaker, obviously he didn’t catch my first answer. An analysis was done, policy approved in 2007. Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you that our government’s objective is not to encourage people to move away, not to incur extra costs because people are not taking drugs they need or medical supplies. We are committed to improving this program. We will cover the vast majority of our population who need the support from the government and that’s what the seniors told us during the consultation between 2003 and ’07; that we need to make the program generous for seniors. We have tried to do that and...

Yes, I mean, that’s the regular process. There’s nothing new about that. We don’t do any of these without going to the committee, Mr. Speaker, and we never have.