“PLP won’t support NHI tax” – The Nassau Guardian

Excerpt from this article; “Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Leader Philip Brave Davis said yesterday that the PLP will not support the two percent payroll tax proposed to fund National Health Insurance (NHI)

Davis said the suggested tax is ‘regressive and oppressive’ for Bahamians who already struggle with a high cost of living.

At the moment, the burden upon Bahamians, so far as taxes are concerned, particularly with the increase of four percent in VAT, [makes it] a bit challenging for us to support such further increases.’ said Davis outside the House of Assembly.” He added, ‘It takes more out of the pockets and out of the discretionary spending.”

As the Leader of the Opposition Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) the Hon. Philip ‘Brave’ Davis protests the proposed 2 percent tax to fund a National Health Insurance initiative which the first Christie led PLP administration, in which he was deputy prime minister, implemented, I am left to ask exactly just how did he and his party originally proposed to have funded this initiative?

The Free National Movement (FNM) began the implementation of this program, as the PLP had been voted out of office, by first introducing the National Prescription Plan with plans of phasing  in other aspects of the program, such as Catastrophic Health Insurance, as funding was made available.

The Free national Movement (FNM) government now finds itself in a very unenviable position and the mere optics of it all is very bad for them as they suggest a two percent (2%) tax pay deduction (tax) to fund the National Health Program; but all of this while the people are still feeling ‘some sort of way’ about the value-added tax (VAT) increase in July of this year and the present proposal that makes a sitting Cabinet member, who is already every wealthy, even more wealthy – the mere optics of it all is extremely ‘horrifying’ to put it mildly, even as the present government attempts to be transparent about it.

It is amazing that the Free National Movement (FNM) would/could operate in this manner while being fully aware that it was this very same behavior that brought the PLP such a crushing defeat at the polls.

Maybe the answer of how to best govern and to get the country back on track was to allow it [the country] to completely fail first.

Maybe it would have been best to allow the Post Office workers to continue to work in hazardous conditions until something serious happened, even if the present proposal will save the government and people millions in the long run.

Maybe it would have been best to allow the healthcare system to completely fail, being unable to provide the basic healthcare and essential services, before making the attempt to find a way to actually make quality healthcare affordable for all.

And maybe it would have been more politically advantageous and prudent for the present government to NOT have taken the present austerity measures as it relates to the economy before it actually stepped in and ‘did something’, as the masses asked them to do by voting them in.

So we all have two choices, to allow for these situations to continue on unchecked until it seems to late or make some very  difficult decisions in order to correct the downward spiral of always applying ‘band-aids’ to very serious open wounds’.

I guess on the face of it all, the optics of it all, a wealthy, white politician being made more wealthy at the tax payers expense; an extra tax to provide for affordable healthcare after the increase in VAT is indeed very bad; I believe at this point that it is very important for the government to be more fiscally responsible and transparent when it comes to the country’s finances and the country’s spending; THE PEOPLE want to know and need to know what government revenue is being collected and how it is being spent and they have come to a point where in the possible misappropriation of funds by the former administration is no longer that important.

What is odd is that the former administration is actually gaining traction with the very unapologetic message of; ‘Yes we did that but you promised to do better’ and the people have grown tired of the present government pointing out the ‘sins’ of the former government. 

While it may be a important to remind the county of the past atrocities of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) as a government, they [the people] would much rather now hear of what the present Free National Movement (FNM) government has done and it doing to better their lives.

This is why they voted you in.

END