Three and a half years in and Perry and his Kleptocrates are getting ready for the election. They have not done a dam thing for suffering Bahamians as they have been to busy feathering their own nests. Now they are rushing this nation killer of NHI into effect and they expect people to trust and believe them. NEVER! They have lied, cheated and stolen far to much from the Bahamian people, they belong in Fox Hill. As long as the PLP is in power only a fool or an idiot would ever trust the government of The Bahamas!

Silly but pretty much expected fear mongering by the Comrade Spokesman's for The Bahamaland Insurance Association’s (BIA.

So TAl what makes you think that NHI will be anything but another Bahamas government DISASTER? Give me one reason, any reason you think it will succeed and not turn into a complete waste/slush fund/vote buying scheme, like any other government agency.

Another question, why would you believe ANYTHING the P.M. as head teller of untruths has to say. How many times does the guy have to be proven to be dishonest before you catch on? Have you ever heard the saying "Fool me once, bad on you. Fool me twice, bad on me", and do you understand what it says?

This is actually a legitimate concern, whether you care to admit it or not. Catastrophic health care, major medical issues nor oversees care is included in this proposed scheme. if you were honest, you will admit that as it now stands, there is nothing offered by this government that is not already provided for in the public health care system. The only thing is now that they will blatantly swipe the money from your salary. How you can continue to blindly support this is unbelievable. Fear mongering? The only thing mongering any fear is perry christie and this ruthless, thieving, undisciplined and clueless cabinet. how can you look at the absolute destruction of this country wrought under this PLP administration and clap and yell 'yes perry, yes!' People like you are scary.

That doesnot affect most Bahamians ......... only 30% of Bahamians have health insurance and those are civil servants or quasi corporations or elite private companies ......... why do you think Perry has picked this issue??????? ............. for its broad voter appeal for election votes!!!!!!!!

Comrades note the PM has no Horse in the BahamaCare race but can you say same about all the man's over at The Bahamas Insurance Association’s (BIA)?

right. no Horse in the BahamaCare race? I'd say that is his only and last floating device that may keep him politically afloat, after he tossed Baha Mar into the Ocean.

Comrades did this follow the dire doom predictions which proceeded "VAT"?

Statement Published in The Tribune on Monday, May 25, 2015

Bahamian workers could see their contributions to employer-sponsored health insurance plans increase by between $40 to $100 per month once premiums are subjected to Value-Added Tax (VAT) from July 1.

Lynda Gibson, Atlantic Medical Insurance’s executive vice-president and general manager, told Tribune Business: “In most companies, the employer pays a portion - if not 100 per cent -of the employee-only coverage. The employees have to pay for their dependents.

**YES**. When your premium is over 400 per month, yes, you will see that increase in premiums. There are MANY people paying individual health insurance premiums VAT is no joke.

**Prices in general have been skyrocketing since VAT. just like the doom and bloomers predicted**. Business owners are complaining that they have to pay VAT on business license, electricity, health care, phone bills so their costs have gone up. Hence VAT is the direct cause of price increases across the board. So predictable and so predictably ignored by the proponents

To do the NHI now is just a political gimmick.

It would appear that the government does not care whether the NHI will work or not just as long as they can say they did it. If they lose the next election they won't have to worry about its inability to provide health care or the financial ruin that it inflicts.

They know that it will take years to stop the financial hemorrhaging in the health system. If they really cared about giving good quality care to all they would fix the system.

To fix the finances of the health system takes political will and leadership, to introduce NHI does not require either.

Just one question Mr. Komolafe; as it will be mandatory for all citizens to register for NHI and as we will have to pay our contribution to the government willy nilly, what incentives will the insurance industry be offering the public to stay with their existing private coverage, the cost of which is exorbitant now to say the least??

The messenger you have raised a valid point. Will the insurance company decrease premium amounts, include additional services on to what we are now receiving? I doubt they will do anything except raise their prices to try to recoup any loss.

It may be a legit question, but timing is wrong. NHI offers nothing for now. If the NHI legislation will allow private insurance to exist next to NHI scheme, then and only then the question will have to be answered. So NHI is - for the ones that have private coverage - not even a consideration. for all others it is pie in the sky.

Comrade Komolafe is not about tell his Insurance Associations thousands of Policy Holders why it is that BahamaCARE premiums will in fact be used to subsidize the insurance companies Life and Extended Care profits for hundreds years way into year 4050..
Komolafe more than most, should know why BahamaCare will become the
Profit Gift Horse to the Insurance Industry that will never stop fattening their wallets.
These insurance men's ways does need praying to Jesus - for long-term forgiveness.

whats wrong with you? NHI is not even a consideration for now. or have you walked into PMH to receive services covered under NHI by now? This is all a BS discussion. Dont buy private insurance if you don't like or drop it if you have it and believe NHI will pay your doctor in the U.S., Grand Bahama or Abaco, if something happens or you get sick.

I don't know what experience this negativity about private health comes from but when Bahama Health shells out 100,000.00 for me and another 100,000.00 for my wife I have a boatload of loyalty to them. This is for surgery at a hospital in Fort Lauderdale that is a palace compared to PMH. My employees can go to PMH if the Government push ahead with this but I will stay with private coverage thanks very much. You pay for what you get and you get what you pay for. Simple !

Comrade I guess you and your Dear Wife were not among over 3000 workers over past 3 years who lost their benefits offered through their workplace private insurance coverage because smaller companies could no longer afford to even subsidize premiums that kept increasing year after year.
It most cases it had nothing do employers being bad or cheap people but the heartless profiteering philosophy insurance owners.
I wonder all the time why the PM refuses to unleash the financial details they hold about insurance companies?
I think it is time talk all their profiteering business.
Workers who paid in for many years lost all their monies paid in....every red cent....many never even made a single claim against the insurance companies.

"Lose every red cent..paying in for years?", are you referring to CLICO or City Market?

Yes, the premiums do increase and they increase in line with the medical costs. Do you think for one second Tal that once GHI starts they won;t start racheting up the premiums too. Some people are naive and others are just plain stupid. Lee Iacocca was the first to publicly acknowledge that there is no such thing as a free lunch. And he was right !

My Dear Comrade Friend. We will thank Jesus in years ahead that unlike private insurance - BahamaCARE will not be in the profiteering business. We have a nation to finish building from Pindling's beginnings and it will be impossible if there ain't no BahamaCARE cards in ya wallets and pocket books.

Please do not bring Pindling into this, because he started the mess that this country finds itself in. I wish the Tribune would start to run a series "Your Bahamian History" with articles and historical facts about how things truly were, the true roots of the PLP, the things this man did, the many victims this man left in his wake, the loss of the Bahamian work ethic ehere they no onger want to work toward something, but expect a handout or to grab it by any means necessary, and the like to wipe away this pure revisionist history that pervades the land. Children in school today have no idea what he was truly like nor the things he did or allowed to go on here all for his and his cronies' benefits. Please explain the palace call Lyn-Mar on a PM's salary; the fact that no one was punished in the 1984 Commission of Inquiries' findings and those are not even frost on the iceberg. Stop joking. As for 'BahamaCARE will not be in the profiteering business', of course it will be. For a certain few, like every governmental department benefits a few. When Glen Beneby talked about the yearly $100 million of wastage that occurs in the public health care system that is unaccounted for, where do you think it goes? Come on man, you have to know better than that. There is no defence to what perry is trying to do here. Further destroying the country in an attempt to win an election (which considering his age and health he is not even sure he may make it to) is not acceptable, nor is it responsible. You know that too.

Tal, good point about subsidization. It would be a lot cheaper if government paid a subsidy of say up to 70% of the insurance premium.

They already have $100 million that they are wasting in the current system. The private insurance companies wouldn't waste $100 million.

Comrade as an Economist I would presume you must be aware of the financial data the government holds about the profiteering privately run and owned insurance companies?
Ask if you think they should have long ago been made pay income taxes on millions in earnings?
Shouldn't the government take off the gloves to respond in kind to the insurance companies who have clearly demonstrated they are most willing do battle to block BahamaCARE, and respond with the full force years financial data collected?

No, but I am aware of the all the data (audits and losses that have been made public) they have on money loosing government agencies, department and corporations totaling over $200 million a year and do nothing about.

I think that government should take their gloves off and respond by cleaning up the mess that they have helped to create.

agree, I would feel more comfortable if the Government were to take on and nationalize other business where they can do less damage, like the bottling business or manufacturing mattresses for the Bahamian market.

All you need to do is see what has happened in any enterprise that the government has been involved in. They have all lost money and huge amounts of money. Between Batelco, Water & Sewerage, Bahamasair, ZNS, the Hotel Corp, BEC, and so on, they have probably lost over $1 Billion Dollars.

If you like the idea of government owned enterprises, the only place left is North Korea.

Tal: all of these local companies publish financial statements and they don't lie. It irritates me when Commonwealth Bank publish such juicy profits and that is all made on the back of poor people with consumer loans at only God knows what percent. Cable Bahamas too make juicy profits. I believe what someone accused you of. You are a bloody Communist reading The Little Red Book. And you right here in our midst. You are probably a bloody Cubian sent here by Castro.

Camarada Mediante el Socialismo!

Folks, I don't want to rain on your parade but China, the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Cambodia and even Cuba are giving up and joining the capitalist system.

The evidence is very clear, you let government run and own as little as possible if you want to be able to put any food on the table.

Comrade Economist you know how tell the difference between a rich man's and a poor man's. You looks down at their feets see the quality shoes they are wearing. Yet the poor man's spends double the money or his cupboard shoes than does the rich man spends on his all genuine leather shoes. You go figure hey?
I can even teach my Comrade Economist friend lots bout poor peoples money spending habits.
These are the same people you wish deny BahamaCARE. Why is that?

Yeh Tal, and you and I are not that far apart in our desire to make things better for our fellow Bahamians. We are just approaching it from different angles.

I would very much like to see us have good health care for all.

But we need a holistic approach. That will include the need to tax the bad foods such as fast food so that we can drop the duty on fresh and organic foods. For those of us who grew up in the Out Islands, as they were then, we got to eat fresh fish and vegetables out of the yard. We had seasons for a number of foods.

Obesity is our biggest problem with respect the NHI and yet no one is addressing it. Yes, and the huge hemorrhaging of cash at PHA.

Already, the UK says that Obesity will bankrupt their health system. We have to deal with it.

You got any ideas on how we deal with it?

Oh yes Comrade Economists we are "that" far apart in our thinking.
Who do you think the families are mostly who will be buying your taxable foods?
I am not buying how you truly want see BahamaCARE become a reality.
Would you support a FREE Lunch Program for ALL public school students?

Tal, the reason I want to tax those foods are to make the better foods cheaper and more available. Even at todays prices I can buy flank steak and cut it into strips, which I then take to work along with my fresh tomatoes, green pepper, celery and lettuce. When I divided the cost over the week it was less that I would spend if I went to Kentucky or Wendy's (about $5.00).

My point is that the same families can eat a more healthy diet. If we have a more healthy nation we could, in fact, afford a very good health system.

I seldom get sick so my health Insurance (yes I have one, just) does well out of me.

With respect to free lunch, only to those who truly need it. We are already fortunate that our education costs, even the private schools, is cheap compared to other nations.
Check out the type of cars some of these so called poor people drive, or go by their house and see the big flat screen (I still don't have one, but my children went to a private school and got a good grades). Are they really in need or are they looking for someone else to pay so they can enjoy their earthly treasures.

Economist I agree with all that, my point is I will have to pay the payroll tax whether I use NHI or not. While My family and I currently enjoy the benefits of private insurance,which we pay through the nose for, for many families it will simply become a matter of economics; they have to pay the government like it or not but having paid Caesar is there enough left to pay Paul ?

That is why I like Tal's idea of subsidies. $100,000,000.00 would pay the full insurance policy for 20,000 Bahamians. That is only the sum the PHA wastes each year. Shut down Bahamasair (where we the taxpayer loses an average of $42,000 a year for each of the 700 employees) and you have another 6,000 Bahamians covered.

Now make that a 70% subsidy and you have covered most of those who are uninsured. The rest could be paid for as we are currently doing.

There are so many ways that this can be done at very little or no cost but the politicians, well they are politicians and they just tax and spend until it dries up.

NHI may just push us over the edge to a down grade, devaluation and the massive unemployment that will follow (look at what happened in Greece). Like us they never thought it would happen.

Comrade ThisIsOurs why you asking me your question "Lose every red cent..paying in for years?", "Are you referring to CLICO or City Market?"
I think your questions would best be refereed to the red regimes lead Fisherman's who was forced into political exile to Cooper's Town.

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