Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said in my Member's statement, I was contacted by two very distraught seniors who were charged full price for over-the-counter medicine that should have been covered by supplementary and extended health benefits. I'd like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services why this was the case. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if there was charges to anyone who was on senior health benefits that was charged for over-the-counter drugs, I would suggest them reach out to my office or to their MLA because those charges shouldn't -- before -- I'll clarify, shouldn't have been charged under what was going to be proposed but after I took further -- looked at it further and began to kind of pull it apart a little bit, when I asked the questions as to why these changes in pharmaceuticals were being changed and why we were getting these e-mails from seniors because it was extended health benefits, we try to keep in line all of our benefits, and so there are some changes that ends up happening with NIHB and the pharmaceutical things change all the time. And so I did stop it, and as the Member has said, that I would be looking into and not necessarily saying that it's going to affect seniors. What I'm saying is that we are looking at what change made that was actually going to implement, why it was going to impact seniors, and how are we doing this across the equitable lens of NIHB, Metis benefits, and our extended benefits, because my understanding is those are all supposed to be the same, except for with the hierarchy of the income testing on the extended health benefits. So if there are charges to seniors, please reach out because those shouldn't have been charged. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. And I want to recognize the Minister did stop it, and I thank her for that. But Mr. Speaker, why did these happen in the first place if they're only being looked at? Why was this implemented and then rolled back? Is this a case of a runaway department, or is the Minister making these decisions herself? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, what I would like to say is the benefit -- pharmacy -- I don't know how to say it very easily without a lot of words in this time because our medical -- our extended health benefits is multiple programs together. So pharmacy goes through Alberta, and there is the changes that were made and they implement our senior benefits and our extended health benefits and our Metis benefits. But for each program, they're supposed to be simultaneously done. The one thing that we were looking at under Restoring Balance was how do we -- you know, if there's changes to over-the-counter drugs, if they're in other areas, then they should all fall in line. And then when that came back, there were some changes in some, then because of the way it goes through Alberta Blue Cross, you know, we -- it went across the board which it shouldn't have because things are -- they're all different within their system. So I needed to have more clarity of what went -- why that happened. We do not administer the Blue Cross. We give them the information, and they're supposed to do this so that's why I stopped it. It shouldn't have affected the senior benefits.
After further looking at it and having more conversations, it's -- like, one of the things that I did ask is why are we being charged so much when it looks like there's 63 percent of the fees of the over-the-counter charges are for pharmacy services. So on a $3 prescription of something, we're being charged an extra $15 for that. So how can we do it different so that we're -- these are over-the-counter drugs. How can we do it different that we're not having to pay that much costs.
And then so looking at the cost of it, I just said let's just stop it, we'll do more investigation as to what went wrong with the senior benefits and just ensuring that all of our other benefits are streamlined across so that way it's not affecting anybody inequitably. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of Health and Social Services give northern seniors her word that there will be no increases to seniors' benefits, no cuts to seniors' benefits, for as long as she is Minister?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as long as I am the Minister, there will be no changes to the senior benefits as all of the benefits that are on the table -- like I said, even with the extended benefits, those changes, we're going to be doing the review so those discussions will happen later on this winter. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.
