Work permit holders and people who have some form of residency in The Bahamas will be eligible for National Health Insurance (NHI), Health Minister Dr. Perry Gomez said yesterday.
"All of those who are here legally will be eligible," said Gomez during a national consultation conference on universal health coverage at the British Colonial Hilton.
Asked how the scheme will be funded, Gomez said that remains unclear as the government is still awaiting a report from Costa Rican accounting firm Sanigest Internacional.
The government engaged the firm to come up with the overall cost for NHI.
The report was expected to be completed by mid-July. However, Gomez said yesterday the government now expects to receive the report by early August.
Under the first Christie administration, it was estimated that the scheme would cost $235 million annually.
However, officials said the initial findings suggest that the cost to implement NHI has increased significantly.
Parliament passed an NHI Bill in the final months of the previous Christie administration, but no regulations were ever finalized.
Gomez said it was recommended under the previous plan for Bahamians to contribute about five percent of their salary to cover the costs of NHI.
However, he said the report from Sanigest will guide the decision on the contribution component for the plan.
The government intends to implement NHI in January 2016.
The government has started consultations as it develops an implementation plan for the scheme.
The Ministry of Health in conjunction with the Pan American Health Organization organized the consultation yesterday.
With only about 35 percent of the population with some form of insurance, Gomez said it is vital for the country to implement the scheme.
"The lack of such a plan causes too much inconvenience and suffering for far too many Bahamian people," he said.
"The timely access to public health is limited, except in emergency cases. Too large an amount of our people either lack health insurance, are either under insured or are unable to get health insurance due to pre-existing conditions."
In addition to creating more equitable access to comprehensive health care, Gomez said the launch of NHI could also help the nation with its crime problems.
"It was pointed out to us...that countries with universal health care had less crime," he said. "One of the issues we have with the crime that we have is a lot of young people join gangs. Why? Because they feel like they don't belong to anything and health insurance membership becomes something they belong to and I am told helps to contribute to a reduction in crime."
PAHO representative Dr. Gerry Eijkemans said universal health coverage also generates economic prosperity and alleviates poverty.
She said it is unacceptable that people still die because of a lack of access to health care services.
Dr. Delon Brennen, chair of the government's steering committee on NHI, said upon implementation, those covered under that plan will be able to get medical care without paying anything to the health provider.
"It means that we have to provide for quality health service and we have to pay for that access ahead of time, so that when people need to come in it's already taken care of and they don't have to worry about it on the back end," he said.
As it relates to how private insurance companies will be impacted, Brennen said he does not expect that to be a major issue but he acknowledged that it is still too early to tell.
"There will still be space in the market place for both public and private health insurance to be able to exist and provide some coverage in those gaps," he said.
"If we expect to cover everyone, that would cost us money that we aren't going to be able to tax or put on the Bahamian people in general."

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