After committing to introducing NHI within the first year of a PLP administration at a 2012 rally, PLP Minister of Health, Dr. Perry Gomez is now asking Bahamians to "give it a chance".
Of course Bahamians are to give NHI's primary care plan a chance without any knowledge as to the amount of tax they will have to pay for it, because that has not been decided yet.
Meanwhile, FNM Leader, Dr. Hubert Minnis is promising a catastrophic health insurance plan, that Dr. Gomez calls "nonsense".
Government and politicians have become, as H.L. Mencken explained, "brokers" "in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."
In other words, they make promises of all the great things they will do for you, but do not tell you the price tag (taxes necessary to fund it) until after they are elected.
While I tend to agree a catastrophic plan is more necessary at this point, more so than primary care that is, the economy is at it's lowest ebb in decades after the implementation of Value Added Tax (VAT), so it seems ludicrous to add to the tax burden now.
Fix the economy, get private business booming again, then people might be able to pay for their own care and insurance policies and government can get on with improving its own problems instead of interfering in the health care business.
But in the meantime we can count on the "brokers" to devise more schemes between now and election day of May 10, 2017.