Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I asked a question earlier about the generous and equitable nature of this new program and the Minister didn’t give me a response. Yesterday I talked about three scenarios. Sorry, I’ll just go back for a second.
There’s an individual, a young man who has a chronic condition that costs about $10,000 a month. In the current system, if he was working for the GNWT he would have 80 percent coverage by insurance, which means the insurance company would cover about $96,000, and he could apply for a top-up under the current system, which would pay for about $24,000. Under the new system proposed by Minister Lee, this individual will have insurance that will cover $96,000, but that individual will be on the hook for the $24,000 that he could apply for top-
up now. It is in that person’s best interest to not work for a company that has insurance. It is in that person’s best interest to take a job at $50,000, dump his insurance and have the Government of the Northwest Territories pay $120,000 rather than $24,000. You can buy an awful lot of glasses and pay for an awful lot of dental appointments for $120,000, or in this case $94,000.
I think we are missing the boat here. We need to fix the problem. Also, I am really happy to hear that the Minister is going to table that Slave River Journal report, because I was going to do the same thing. When I read it, I agree. Yes, a lot of different jurisdictions are doing co-payments and premiums, but in no jurisdiction, not one, in fact in many of the jurisdictions, every one of them has a program that offers some sort of specified condition program and not one of them discriminates because people don’t have insurance. I want you to tell me, or rather, Mr. Speaker, I want the Minister to tell me how all these other jurisdictions don’t discriminate because somebody has insurance for people with specified conditions we are going to. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.