Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you. Are you going to collect, like, the user experience or beneficiary experience as part of that data collection? That's what I'm looking for. Because, you know, we hear from constituents who are paying more now than they were before and, I mean, it sound great, right, that people have found new ways to lower their costs and accessing other benefits and everything's really working out really well, but I keep hearing from -- again, I have a constituent who texts me just about every month to remind me how much more he is paying, and that's -- that's -- and that's not the only information I get, Mr. Chair. So I'm just wondering are you capturing the experience of beneficiaries who are now experiencing those hardships? Just so we can get a sense of how clients are experiencing this. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Minister. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I know that there has been -- I mean, the health admin office does deal directly with the clients and has been keeping, you know, the information that we will be needing to look at through this process. And once we get to the year and we analyze the data, we'll go forward on -- as to what further analysis that we need to do. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you. Do you know how much -- like, if you had maintained the old system but added the new client base, do you know what the cost for that -- the cost of the program would be? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, because it's on a basis where people are utilizing supplies, they're utilizing medication, the cost of medication, you know, their prescription changes. They've left -- clients have left. New clients have come to the territories. People migrate from this program into the seniors' benefit program. So there's a lot of different moving pieces to this. So that is not something that we can say that we have offhand. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you. No, that's fair. That's a difficult question to answer. Can the Minister remind me how many clients have fallen off? I know there's 366 new clients but how many have fallen off from previously registered? Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you. I think -- I believe of the 1200 people that were accessing benefits before, we have 794 and -- again, and 300 that were 429 of them on the last information I have were previous clients, and many -- like I said, before the program was is if you were a specific disease, you didn't even have to go through other insurances. And so now the program has been so that you're the user of last resort of the extended health benefits. So those that have previously been on them have been accessing, you know -- may have chosen to use their own insurance if they have work insurance and things like that if there were -- like, say, for instance, they work for the government, they will use their government insurance first. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you. I guess I -- I wish that had kind of been explained ahead of time because it's a very reasonable idea that, like, the changes to the system are just using other insurance providers first and that would, I think, help sell this a lot more. But that being said, some people I know who work as public servants are still paying more. So public health care insurance plans don't cover everything, and there's still a need for these extended health benefits. What would it take for -- like, what kind of assessment would it take to lower the cost -- or to restore the benefits to the place they were? Because what I'm afraid of it is like last time, there was a fight over this and I, and other Members, were not happy with how this shook out. But the guarantee the Minister was like, don't worry, we'll look at it, and we'll come back and talk to you. But are you just -- is the Minister just going to come back and be, like, here are the numbers and we're going to continue? Because I think we're looking for a real, you know, give and take here. Like, is there a possibility that we can restore extended health benefits and take the edge off constituents who are paying more now than they were before? Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure if I understand the question. We still have -- everybody can still apply through extended health benefits. There are -- if they choose to -- you know, based on their income threshold and their net income, there has been things put in place where they can -- you know, instead of paying that lump sum right at the beginning, we made -- I've made an exception right off the bat that they could do it through monthly installments if they know -- like, some people, if they know that their prescriptions are -- and they're going to be utilizing this program, they can pay the deductible right off the bat, and they can do it over the year. So that was offered to anybody who provided that, and we have -- I think the last time we've -- I followed up on that that there was one person that was doing that. But that is an option and it is -- and then in the information that goes to the clients so that way if it is -- you know, to be able to come up with that full deductible right off the bat when they apply that they can break it down over the year. So thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you. Well, I guess to be clear, so I have a constituent who is paying $4,000 more a year that he didn't before. So before the change to the program, he was paying zero dollars. Now he's paying $4,000. So how do we get to a point where he's back to zero? Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, based -- I mean, I'm not going to go into the details of the program here right now. I mean, I know that, as we said, we will be doing the review. Somebody who's paying $4,000 in a deductible is probably at the top end of the grid, and the bands were -- you know, I mean, I think the lowest band is $58,000 a year for, I think, band 10 that we talked about last year, and it's also based on how many people are in their household. You know, if there's -- if there's an adult. If there's children, then that's taken in account of what -- and it's based on their take home. It's not based on their gross; it's based on their take home. So that would be in one of the highest brackets I would say. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Range Lake.

Yes, thank you. Well, I mean, I don't think we'll have a satisfactory answer here. What I'm looking at is, like, are we going -- is this going to be a negotiation or is this going to be an ongoing negotiation around, like, is this program working for our constituents, or is it going to be we've decided it is, here's the information, good bye, right? Like, I'm seeing if there's a willingness from the Minister to work to reconsider this decision. Because, again, I appreciate the challenges of health care sustainability and all that goes into that, but benefits to constituents that lower the cost of living in the Northwest Territories directly are really important, and I don't want to see them given up lightly, and I want to fight for this. So is the Minister willing to reconsider this after the review is done? Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, like I said in this House, I will wait until after we see the results of the first year of the review. We'll see, you know, the uptake. We'll be able to have the data. We'll be able to figure -- like, look at the difference of the clients that were on -- you know, that chose not to.

The thing is if they haven't applied and we don't know -- like, if they were in the old system of the -- and if they haven't applied, then we don't know what the difference is going to be so that kind of data, people didn't apply on the extended health benefits because they are in a higher tax bracket or, you know, then they -- we won't be able to analyze the data on how many people and what their costs were because that's also data that we will have to take in account. So I'm -- I'll just leave it at that, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.