The utter disdain for decency and the unapologetic hypocrisy of this supposedly religious leader, the government and all of the other opportunistic 2002 vote "No" antagonists is the primary reason why most persons are having such a difficult time embracing these questions. Most people are finding it incredibly difficult to believe that the fervor and raw conviction with which these same persons urged us to vote "No" in 2002 was nothing more than a game of self-interest and deceit. Is it any wonder why our society is the way that it is when the persons in our society who are suppose to be our moral compass are as morally pliable as a blade of grass in a hurricane. Good Archbishop, more than anyone you should apologize for your behavior in 2002 before proffering any advice on this subject in 2016.

It would be a privilege and a honor to be deemed "in contempt" of this Parliament.

"According to our records he never had a work permit” says the Immigration Chief. Therefore, it logically follows that this whole story is either a fabrication or just not true because everyone knows that a person without a work permit cannot be trusted. "Toggie" and "Bobo" never had any contracts with government, they never made any recordings of conversations with Nygard, they were never hired by Nygard to do anything, much less commit murder and in fact they never even met Nygard or the DPM. Everybody just lying on these two good boys who are being used by bad people to destabilize our good government who everyone knows is beyond reproach.

You cannot make this stuff up! At a time when we have over 25% of the population unemployed or underemployed, when GDP growth is expected to be negligible for the foreseeable future, when our credit rating is one notch above junk status, when government spending is out of control and projected to explode with NHI, when the balance of trade deficit is growing each year and national savings are at an all time low with consumers taking on credit just to make ends meet the PM is voted person of the year for introducing a regressive consumption tax which will exacerbate all of the aforementioned issues. What a joke and what is so sad is that the joke is on us.

........should be allow his friends and family to grieve........

Your post is totally inappropriate! Allow is friends and family to grieve without attaching to it all that nonsense.

It is certainly not helpful and some may say unprofessional when a consultant begins using dehumanizing rhetoric to describe the "stakeholders" of a project she has been leading. Indeed, in my view, it probably says more about her than the stakeholders. If she is as intelligent, as it appears she believes, and the NHI scheme "is all that" as she also appears to believe, then it would seem a small issue to eviscerate the small minded questions from these "morons" with reasoned and compelling arguments supporting the strength and efficacy of her NHI scheme. The fact is that serious questions have been put forward about this proposed NHI scheme and they deserve serious answers not name calling. Granted some of the answers are political but answers are needed all the same. In my view the stakeholders and all of us should be concerned about this NHI scheme which is scheduled to be implemented in a few months but no one can explain how much it will costs, how it will be funded and by whom nor what it would look like. Further, the analysis and projections, in my view are inherently faulty and shallow. They underestimated the trade-offs and the free rider, moral hazard and systemic corruption factors already inherent in the fabric of our society. It also pays little attention to the supply side dynamics and infrastructural factors once we have exploded the demand for medical services as it is intended to do and if you ask five people which economic or societal problem this NHI scheme is intended to solve you would get five different answers. Maybe healthcare is a fundamental human right, but let's have a real debate about exactly what that means, what societal or economic problem we are trying to solve, how much will it costs, how will it be funded and who is going to pay for it, what are the trade-offs and consequences for society of using scarce resources for healthcare instead of some other societal issue and most importantly how will the design of the health care program influence the incentives for stakeholders and beneficiaries to behave in this or that way.

Tal your posts highlights the inherent contractions and lack of clarity of the proposed NHI scheme. Exactly what social or economic problem is NHI intended to solve. Is it being implemented as you state because medical care is out of the reach of thousands or is it because health care costs have risen twice as fast as the out of paychecks workers that have lost their jobs or is it because no Bahamian should have to plan a cook-out to cover medical costs or is it because poor persons should not be disadvantaged with no health care coverage or is it because access to health care is a fundamental human right. Economics as a discipline does not make value judgements, it is merely the study of the allocation of scarce resources in a society that have alternative uses. This means in simple terms that there are no free lunches in society. The reality is that transportation in a modern day society can also be considered a necessity and the price of a car is also out of the reach of thousands. Should the government also buy a car for every Bahamian? Further this debate, if you would call it that, has really only focused on the demand side, with little attention being paid to the supply side. When we increase the demand as this program is intended to, what happens to the supply. Every day doctors at PMH are playing God and sending people home to die because there are just not enough beds in PMH. In short whilst the goals of Universal Health Care may be laudable, public policy should not be evaluated on goals but on sober and concrete assessments about what societal problem we are intending to solve, what are the trade-offs inherent in our choices, what are the consequences of our choices and most importantly what incentives would the policy or program give to the various stakeholders to act in this or that way. This last point is critically important because it is my view that the free-rider, moral hazard and systemic corruption problems, which are already endemic in our Bahamian society, have not been fully captured in any NHI projections and will in my opinion lead to an explosion of costs to be borne by society and future generations.

A great point, even though it may be socially uncomfortable. The irony of the trade-offs policy makers are faced with has always fascinated me and I am not advocating for widespread abortion. However, there is a popular theory that the fall in violent crime in the United States starting in the early 1990's can be traced back to the legalization of abortion in the early 1970's. In short the theory posits that as fewer unwanted children were being born, this translated into fewer children growing up in social environments that served as incubators that increased the likelihood of them engaging in criminality. It is easy, comfortable and quite frankly silly to talk about the government putting programs in place to help eliminate the decay in our society because I have never seen a government program that can compel a parent to love a child.

Are we really serious to expect Dr. Nottage, PLP, FNM or any politician to solve our crime problem? Dr. Nottage, at worst, is guilty of politicizing the crime issue. He happens to be sitting in the musical chair at the moment but it is really not about him. It is about all of us. Whenever we talk about measures to address the crime problem all we do is speak about present tense factors that may or may not address the symptoms of our crime problem. The root cause of our crime problem is resistant to these present tense factors. However, like a drug addict who is afraid to look in the mirror for fear that seeing his image would bring him to the conscious realization that he is a drug addict, we as a society appear to also be afraid to look in the mirror. Instead we walk around with our heads held high in full denial, like the drug addict, while our society is decaying from within. If you want to be a hair dresser, plumber or electrician you have to go through training yet there is no training required to be a Parent. We have become a dysfunctional society where societal norms no longer sanction abnormal and boorish behavior and the virtues of hard work, education, decency, honesty, respect, accountability and personal responsibility only applies to a small sub-set of our society and quickly becoming unfashionable.