Insurance brokers rep queries place in NHI scheme

Mon, Dec 21st 2015, 11:43 PM

Bahamas Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA) President Felicia Knowles told Guardian Business yesterday that, after meeting with the government's National Health Insurance (NHI) team last week, it is clear that the government envisions no place in the NHI scheme for the hundreds of agents and brokers who work in the private health insurance industry. It is a claim Knowles has made before, and one which has been sidestepped by NHI proselytizers on a number of occasions.

Yesterday, she discussed the meeting organized by the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers' Confederation last week.

"We all went in there very optimistic, and we all came out clueless. We were more lost than before we went in. They don't know the benefits; [they] say the benefits will be unveiled in two weeks. That was last week, so two weeks means the end of the year.

"If you are serious about the Bahamian people, if you are serious about the coverage and the health benefits you are trying to provide to them, you would not have this information in two weeks; you're supposed to have had this information last year."

The numbers
Knowles also challenged that the numbers still are not adding up. The scheme is set to cost $102 million (according to the newest estimates) per year, of which $5 million is for prescription drugs.

"You take that $5 million and divide that by 350,000 people -- everybody gets $14.28 for prescriptions. That can't buy you a bottle of Nyquil," she said.

Other calculations were, she said, equally disturbing.

"It is evident they don't know what they're doing. They don't understand medical benefits."

She pointed out that the remainder of the funds divided across the 350,000 people the government hopes to cover, leaves around $250 or so to cover each Bahamian's primary care for the entire year.

"You're not delivering people access to care, you are bottlenecking them more," she said, adding that manpower is also going to be stretched.

No role
Knowles said that, under the aegis of the Bahamas Insurance Association, she received a copy of the NHI roadmap.

"There were no brokers and agents considered. Where brokers and agents sit, it appears that NIB would be holding that role, and when the NHIC (National Health Insurance Commission) comes into play, whomever they hire will play that role.

"They are actually looking at doing the enrolment," she said, pointing out that this -- enrolment particularly -- is one of the primary tasks of the agent or broker.

She noted that the Insurance Act places strong safeguards around the confidentiality of information.

"That's why agents and brokers go through a rigorous screening, and guidelines, and take tests and have to be certified in order to handle somebody's personal information. But we're nowhere a part of that roadmap, and that's sad," Knowles said.

"To be truthful, if they are going around saying that the questions are being answered and everybody's comfortable, that is an outright lie. That's something you cannot feed to the Bahamian public, because when Bahamians think about insurance, they think about insurance agents and brokers. That's not only Bahamians, that's international," she said, pointing to U.S. recommendations to contact insurance agents or brokers for information on the AFA, or "Obamacare".

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