Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to bring up something that I've already talked about in this House before, and that is the group of people who are not covered by any kind of dental or pharmaceutical insurance. As I said in a statement not so long ago that the Minister will remember, on some of these extra things if you are Dene, you're covered; if you're M‚tis, if you're senior, if you're indigent, if you work for a large corporation, but there's a whole lot of people who work for the private sector, small business, who do not have access to employer sponsored insurance programs. There's a group. I don't know if I'd say it's a whole lot of people, it's probably not that many people. Anyway, I want to know in simple terms, and I know the Minister said oh, you know, we're looking at extended health care benefits and we're studying this and we're studying that, but you know, what I want to know is has anybody from the Department of Health ever approached a medical insurance company, like Green Shield or Blue Cross or some other insurance company, and said look, how much would it cost to do a kind of a contract that the GNWT would put out for people who don't have any insurance coverage for dental and pharmaceutical to subscribe to? The people would pay the premiums. People can't do that and afford to do it on an individual basis. However, if they could tie into a group policy -- it would be a large group -- but if they could tie into a group policy, it could potentially cost the government nothing. They could just be the facilitators and the coordinators of it. It might cost them some administration dollars. So my question is, has anybody ever approached an insurance company to see if we could make something like that available to those people who I feel badly are not covered and should be? Thank you.
Jane Groenewegen on Item 16: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
In the Legislative Assembly on February 20th, 2006. See this statement in context.
Item 16: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 16: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
February 19th, 2006
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See context to find out what was said next.