Dear Editor,
Development of a National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is very important to the people of St. Maarten, and the scheme will need to be studied, discussed and developed with all entities involved in the medical, insurance, economic, tourism, labour, financial, private and public sectors.
The situation on St. Maarten is unique to any existing systems available today. Therefore using calculation of premiums derived from existing systems will jeopardise the viability of an NHIS for St. Maarten.
St. Maarten is unique, in the sense that we do not have a very broad-based working contingent to finance existing NHIS systems, while our tourism-based economy thrives on the many visitors to our island who also need health care.
The larger part of the working contingent has two employers. When we follow the existing NHIS systems and calculate the premiums for St. Maarten, we might as well give everyone on St. Maarten a gold card Health Insurance with one of our existing insurance companies! However, this is not the objective of the NHIS.
The NHIS that is developed for Country St. Maarten should be viable, payable and beneficial to all involved. It will need input from all in the community to realise this. In the end, when we do realise this, it will be a benchmark for many countries in the world! Who knows? It might be an export product.
Ir. Paul Rivière
