Thank you. That's good news that we've finally got a more businesslike, I guess, approach to resolving this. Mr. Murray mentioned that sometimes it takes two or three years to reconcile the accounts. I believe it was the Auditor General, wasn't it, who pointed out in recent times that we are leaving quite a bit of cash on the table, or having to finance a lot of cash flow because there was such lag between when we presented our invoices and when we got payment? How are we doing in the arrears department? Do we still have a considerable variance or outstanding amount that we are hoping to collect, Mr. Chairman?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this is a situation that we're going to continue to raise at the table with our health colleagues and the Health Minister. With NIHB, or non-insured health benefits, we're not doing too badly. But the program that was just currently being discussed where they capped the program, they capped non-insured health

benefits as well, but they capped the program and, very clearly, we're never going to recover the money that we have spent in the past number of years and that money, for all intents and purposes, is on our books as accounts receivable, but would probably be classified in the business world as a bad debt that you'd end up writing off because the federal government has refused to pay it because of their own caps.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mrs. Groenewegen.

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.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we estimate it's about 10 percent of our population doesn't have third-party coverage, which is why we did some of the things we did a couple of years ago for medical travel and the $250 deductible. What work we've been doing here has involved Alberta Blue Cross. We've been looking at options of providing coverage for all northerners and it's a fairly complicated process. If we're seen to be providing a universal program, for example, then the federal government will just sort of walk away from non-insured health benefits saying you're providing it for everybody else, we're not paying anymore. So we are going to be coming forward with some options here that we think will allow us to help address this. It's going to need some reprofiling, but there will be a number of options. So we are working on it. We have consulted with the insurance companies and specialists, and we've consulted with the homeless and we've consulted with the Salvation Army. We're going to consult with the seniors and we're walking through how do we close that gap, that 10 percent gap. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you. I've lived in the Northwest Territories almost my whole life, but I do know when I was a kid growing up in Ontario, my parents used to get a bill occasionally that was the Ontario health insurance premium, and for a family it was a certain amount and for an individual it was a certain amount and people paid it, I don't know, on a quarterly basis and they bought health insurance and it was not particularly overly expensive. I don't know what it is now because I haven't lived there for over 30 years and I'm not sure if they still charge that. I want the Minister to elaborate a little bit for me on why the federal government would take the kind of a clawback or diminished services approach if we were trying to do something separate that would be funded by the people who subscribe to the service? Why would the federal government have an issue with that in terms of the other supports they provide to the people who are covered? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, what I meant to say, or what I was saying, is that if the government is seen to be paying or we come up with a scheme where like the other health programs that we have that there is no charge and we're going to cover everybody's costs at the same level, then the federal government, we anticipate, would take that as a universal program that they don't think they should have to pay differently. If it's a program where there's an insurance program and people are paying a certain amount themselves, it's not an issue. That's the distinction I was trying to make. I apologize for any confusion. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Anything further, Mrs. Groenewegen?

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm glad we have that clear now. I recognize that you'd have to do some pretty serious battle to increase your Health and Social Services budget significantly enough. You'd need a lot of financial resources to extend universal access on Pharmacare and dental. I understand that. As an interim measure though, I'm talking about putting in place a program for others who are not already covered by third-party that people could pay into and pay a premium, and if it's that large of a group, I maintain that the premium might be quite reasonable, but somebody has to instigate it. Somebody has to be the overseer of it and then people would pay their premiums and they would opt in or choose not to, if they don't want to pay it. But at least people who are not covered now would have an option of purchasing coverage, insurance coverage, for those things at a reasonable rate, and I think it should be doable. There's insurance for everything. You can buy insurance for everything out there. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Member is correct; Alberta has recently come up with an arrangement such as that, and that's going to be one of our considerations as we come forward with options to look at in terms of how do we close the gap and get the third-party coverage and who pays, and if we pay, how do we pay, and if it's going to be a shared responsibility, how do we offset that. So we're going to be looking at that one as well. But the Member is correct; it is doable. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Anything further, Mrs. Groenewegen?

I think I've heard the three words I wanted to hear: It is doable. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. We are on page 6-35. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The money that the Minister talked about before in terms of the one that is not likely to recover in terms of the non-insured health benefits. It seems like we may not be able to get some of our money back from the federal government. He said in the business sense we'll call it bad debt in terms of we're probably going to have to more than likely write it off, but I think that was money well spent. That's a fairly good bad debt. So I wanted to tell that to the Minister in terms of I hope there's some type of plan here to ask the new Prime Minister of any likelihood of us, because we carry that load of money to recoup or receive some type of recovery for that funding. I wanted to ask the Minister, are we just going to let it go and money well spent for our people and go on from there? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, what we have to do is differentiate, as we deal with this, that non-insured health benefits is covered by Health Canada and our big problem comes with Indian Affairs who look after the medical hospital services of the Indian and Inuit people, which is where the significant amounts owing are there on our ledgers, and they're the ones that have capped the program and have indicated that they're not going to be compensating us for that. So we have a new Minister, Minister Prentice. They're going to be looking at I think taking a very clear look at how Indian Affairs operates. Whether they will look at any kind of retroactivity is yet to be determined, but it's an issue for us that has not been forgotten. I know the civil service in the previous government were adamant that they weren't paying, but for us it's going to be an issue worth revisiting. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Chair, is the Minister and his department putting some points together, or arguments together, in terms of ensuring that the federal government is not offloading some of its fiduciary responsibility in terms of health care or health services to the territorial government? We may get stuck with this in the future in terms of other governments in terms of how the federal government is possibly offloading some of its obligations in terms of the health care to the aboriginal people. I wanted to ask if the Minister has any type of position paper or any type of arguments to go to the new federal Minister? Thank you.