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NHI spends more than it earns
Director of the Virgin Islands' (VI), Social Security Board (DSSB), Ms Antoinette Skelton, gave the briefing recently, when she appeared before the House of Assembly’s, Standing Finance Committee, to examine the draft allocations for 2018, coming under the Ministry of Health and Social Development.
DEFICIT
NHI in 2017 earned $79,882,819 but its total expenditure was $80,476,662. This represents a net loss (deficit) of $646,843 that year.
Mrs Skelton told Committee members that the situation is projected to get worse, as a result of the hurricanes that devastated the territory in 2017.
“She projected that in, 2018 they would see a bigger loss as a result of businesses being nonfunctional after the hurricanes,” the report said.
At present, NHI has paid out 138,000 claims totaling $41,147,839 had been paid to 23,819 members, and the unpaid claims totaled $3,720,718.
Further compounding the situation at NHI, Ms Skelton reported too that a significant number of employers in the Territory did not pay contributions for their employees, but the employees were benefitting from the system.
The DSSB said too that another challenge that could negatively affect the scheme was the legislation that said that children and persons over 65 years of age were entitled to receive free medical attention.
She advised that those persons were not contributing to the NHI system, but they opted to go to private facilities instead of the public health care centres.
AMEND LAWS
According to Ms Skelton, NHI would, as a result, send forward a recommendation to the Minister to have that legislation amended, “because those persons were not contributing and NHI should not have to pay if they utilised the private facilities.”
Asked about the ‘Actuarial’ review that was conducted in 2017, “Mrs Skelton reported that NHI was at the time still awaiting the submission of the actuary report.”
That review looked at the financial sustainability of the system,” she said, and further reported that NHI’s Board, “had also made a decision that they would have a review of the benefit system.”
The Director said the agency has already been in contact with the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) to assist in, “conducting the review and if they could not undertake it, to make a recommendation for someone to look at the benefit package and the whole benefit side of the system.”
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32 Responses to “NHI spends more than it earns ”
Moreover, children and persons over 65 should not automatically be relegated to just public care. What medical practioner (s) they see should be situational. By the way, chiren should be under parents/family plan. The NHI should have a network plan, ie, public facilities, private providers......etc. If a customer decides to go outside of network for non-emergency services, he/she should bore the out of network cost. Further, the NHI should contract with medical practioners for fix cost for services. If doctors decide to accept NHI, the cost for that is the price they should charge the NHI patient. Not averse to NHI patients having reasonable copays and coinsurance. Moreover, there must be a major focus on preventative care; this would improve health and lower cost over time.
Reaaaaaaaaallllllllly??
$600,000? I expected it to be much worse. Easy fix with a few adjustments.
if they dont have that...then they dont get a renewal trade license. start puting pressure on ALL businesses........not just foreign......to pay up. i hear of so many employees who have had deductions made but those deductions have not been paid over to nhi or ss. that is theft and is a criminal offence and employers who do this should have the police knocking on their door.
where does it stop.....people should be alowed to not pay rent becUse it may over stretch the business cash flow. ?
i understand where you are coming from...but if a business cant sustain its workforcw or is not intending to pay the ss or nhi then they shouldnt be deducting it in the first place.