Number 3 tells that answer. So I would encourage the Member and everybody else to look at this questionnaire that we posted on the website. The Member is suggesting, and others are suggesting, that we have a predetermined course of action and that we have a date in place and that we’re shoehorning the public into a decision, which is absolutely not true.
Number 3: Knowing what we know now about the costs and needs of the various existing uninsured health benefits programs, the Department of Health
and Social Services is considering rolling the three programs this paper has discussed into a single program that is available to all Northerners not eligible for another program. Eligibility will be determined by your income, instead of age or specific condition. Do you agree?
I cannot think of another example of a more open, better designed, better evidenced, more of a two-way dialogue than this consultation process. I ask the Members to give it a chance. Give our public the benefit of the doubt that they have the intelligence and the knowledge and the interest that they will come out, even if it is the Easter weekend. Or if they don’t have time, they will respond to us on the website. I have faith in the people. I ask the Members to have faith in our public as well.