By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

National Health Insurance (NHI) and its costs could be “the last straw for many a business”, Doctors Hospital’s president said yesterday, adding that too many questions remain over how the scheme will be implemented.

  Barry Rassin said : “I have many concerns.  As usual, we have little detail, so it’s  hard to really comment. However, it all depends how they write us into the plan. 

“What will the reimbursement be? Will they help to increase our volumes or minimise the reimbursement so we can’t afford to take the patients? What is the cost for employer and employee? What will the phase one benefits be? There are too many questions, so we can only surmise what they will do.”

Mr Rassin added: “If they come in as rumoured, then the cost to the corporate community will be the last straw for many a business.”

The Government’s consultants, Sanigest Internacional, in a report delivered in October 2014, appear to favour NHI being financed by a payroll tax of between 1-5 per cent, depending on whether the scheme is phased in or implemented ‘in one shot’.

During a presentation on the mid-year Budget last week, Health Minister Dr Perry Gomez acknowledged that while the Government’s decision to go ahead with NHI in January 2016 was ambitious, it will become a reality in 10 months. 

The first version of the NHI plan, developed under the inaugural Christie administration, had proposed that it be paid for via increased National Insurance Board (NIB) contributions.

The increase was then pegged at 5.3 per cent, split 50/50 between employer and employee, meaning NIB contribution rates would have increased by 2.65 percentage points.

At that time, the NHI scheme was forecast to cost $235 million. But the costs of the NHI plan are now estimated at $633 million if the Government goes with a full one-time implementation.

 Although a National Health Insurance Act was passed by the first Christie government in 2006, the scheme has only been carried out partially through NIB’s Prescription Drug Plan, which began in 2010 under the last Ingraham administration.