I have waited months to hear how the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) government had planned to fund the newly instituted National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme  moving forward because even if they were to lose the election in the next two weeks, a plan should be in place to fund it; actually the scheme should not have been implemented without a way of funding it but….

“Govt. doesn’t know how it will fund NHI moving forward – About 2,600 people enrolled in plan.” – The Nassau Guardian

Excerpt from this article; “THE government still does not know how it plans to fund National Health Insurance (NHI) moving forward, according to Health Minister Dr. Perry Gomez.

While speaking to reporters outside the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) yesterday, Gomez said currently, NHI is funded through the ‘public purse’, but admitted that the government cannot continue to do so.

He said while several options have been discussed, the government has yet to make a final decision.

‘Right now, the government is funding it from the purse but I don’t think you could continue that way,’ Gomez said.

‘Somewhere down the line we will look at other means.’

‘There are some things that were suggested in the very first discussion of it like taxes….’

In October 2015, Prime Minister Perry Christie said the government was considering introducing a tax to fund NHI in the next fiscal year,

Christie did not say what kind of tax the government is considering or the proposed rate of taxation.”

“Somewhere down the line we will look at other means”, really Health Minister Gomez?

I personally feel that the whole idea of an additional tax would be political suicide for the Christie administration, especially given the outstanding questions concerning the revenues collected from Value-Added Tax (VAT) but how else do you fund such an ambitious scheme that you have promised the people?

Don’t you, as a government, feel any sense of shame or embarrassment at your failure to fully implement the scheme because you seemed to have overlooked or realistically address the essential and most critical issue of funding?

Rhetorical question; because we all know that this government lacks the moral compass that would allow it to be able to feel shame and embarrassment.

It is most unfortunate that his government has put itself and the entire county in this predicament but it only highlights the incompetence and ineptitude of this present Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) government and also highlights the reckless manner in which they continue to approach the affairs of the people.

There should be no way that the government could have/should have gotten this far along with this plan, now having people being registered for the health care plan with the possibility of it not making it out the first phase, this within itself is the definition of incompetence.

National Health Insurance was formally introduced to the Bahamian people during the first Christie administration, at which time the question of funding arose and the Christie administration replied that it was not a tax but yet we still stand with the question of how will the scheme be funded and the only viable answer is an additional tax.

The Progressive Liberal Party fails for one reason, it is their nature.

END