By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Deputy Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

THE government will have to decide whether National Health Insurance will be funded through increasing existing taxes or if the money to fund the scheme will come from a new kind of direct tax, Finance Minister K Peter Turnquest said yesterday.

Speaking to reporters, the deputy prime minister said while Cabinet has not yet discussed how NHI will be paid for, they all agree "there is no such thing as a free lunch" in this regard.

This comes after Health Minister Dr Duane Sands confirmed last week that an additional tax will be introduced for the scheme.

"No, we have not had detailed discussions on that, but we all agree that as a concept we know that there is no such thing as a free lunch if you will," Mr Turnquest said in response to a question from The Tribune. He spoke to reporters on the sidelines of the Bahamas Business Outlook at Baha Mar yesterday.

"And so to the extent that we are adding cost to the health care system through the provision of catastrophic or even primary healthcare, somebody's gonna have to pay.

"Now whether that is through increasing other taxes or whether that is through a direct taxation to support the health care system, that is something that will have to be discussed, but we are not at that point yet."

Dr Sands has said he put pressure on the NHI board to come to the public sooner rather than later concerning the funding and execution of the initiative.

NHI's budget has been slashed from $40m to $36m, after Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis made the decision for all budgets across the board to be cut by 10 per cent this fiscal year, Dr Sands said.

"Yes," said Dr Sands when asked if a tax is the only way to fund NHI.

"You may recall in the 2017-2018 budget, we allocated $40m for NHI," Dr Sands said recently. "What we suggested was $15m for primary care, $15m for catastrophic care and $10m for the nuts and bolts of running the NHI Authority. Now we have made the decision that all of the budgets will be decreased by 10 per cent so instead of $40m, we are looking at $36m this fiscal year.

"Moving forward we need to be able to tackle the problem of how NHI will be paid for. No one questions the benefits but how will we pay for it and also people want to know what can I get for my mommy or daddy who is struggling and so we want to be very specific."

Dr Sands said there are currently more than 30,000 people enrolled in NHI. The primary care phase was launched by the Christie administration in 2017, shortly before the May general election.