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By Andrew Livingstone
Northern News Services
Published Saturday, January 17, 2009

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Yellowknife MLAs are promising to fight tooth and nail to make sure changes to health benefits won't leave seniors out in the cold, even if that means turfing Health Minister Sandy Lee.

More than 100 Yellowknife residents gathered Thursday evening at the Baker Centre to ask Yellowknife MLAs what can be done to prevent the controversial supplementary health care benefits program from taking affect April 1.

Yellowknife resident Esther Braden addresses a packed house at the Baker Center Thursday evening. More than 100 people turned out to grill Yellowknife MLAs about the territorial government's new supplementary health care benefits policy due to take affect in April, leaving many seniors scrambling to cover costs for medication and eyeglasses. - Andrew Livingstone/NNSL photo

The new program means non-aboriginal seniors will have to pay for prescriptions and other non-insured medical needs if the government deems they can afford it. Up until now, the territorial government has covered prescriptions for all seniors in the NWT.

"Those who are already on the current program and aren't having to pay for their drugs and now possibly being put into a situation where they're going to spend thousands of dollars for their drugs, this is going to be a big problem," said city councillor David Wind, who moderated Thursday's meeting.

Five of six Yellowknife MLAs who attended the meeting said they won't support the new program. Only Bob McLeod, who like Lee also sits on cabinet, spoke in support of the change.

"It was felt that those who could afford should pay some of their way," said McLeod, facing catcalls from seniors accusing his government of "trying to get rid of us."

Retired territorial government employees, on the other hand, will still enjoy extended health care coverage.

Lee was asked to skip the meeting by Wind and Blake Lyons, president of the Yellowknife Seniors Society, who feared her presence would turn her into a "lightning rod" among angry attendees at the meeting.

That didn't stop MLAs from pledging to remove her if she didn't back off.

"If this current health minister doesn't want to listen to the people who elected her and listen to the members opposite then maybe it's time for her to go and we can get someone in who will listen," said Kam Lake MLA Dave Ramsay.

"It's been my experience that we've held budgets hostage and we're in budget season," added Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins. "We've taken ministers out in the past because they don't listen to our side and it's a reality they need to start considering."

The policy change was announced last December. The plan calls for all existing supplementary health benefits programs for non-aboriginals to be combined into one program. Come April, health benefits will be administered through an income means test. The program will still provide benefits to low income residents and their families.

Great Slave MLA Glen Abernethy suggested current residents can be "grandfathered" into the existing plan but resident John Dalton said that's still unacceptable.

"I find it exceptionally offensive to say grandfather it and to heck with my children," said Dalton, as attendees cheered. "If you grandfather it, you're accepting it. Grandfathering it helps us but for my kids who are born here, you're saying they aren't equal.

"If you sit there and work to at least get it grandfathered, I'll work to get you out."

Chris Williams, like many at the meeting, was very concerned about the household income threshold that will be applied within the new program. The threshold is $50,000 per household even if there are two seniors, such as a retired couple, living under the same roof.

"The income threshold is miserably low and I can't see the logic on how two can have the same threshold as one," said Williams.

Frame Lake MLA Wendy Bisaro said she expects the health department to have problems with the income thresholds.

"The household income is not the way to go," she said.

Abernethy also said if seniors can't afford their medication it may end up costing the health care system more in the end.

"We might have more sick people and greater demands on the system which means were going to have more people drawing money out of our hospital," Abernethy said.

Hawkins said he is in favour of support for low income residents, but not at the expense of the seniors of the NWT.

"This government is giving up on seniors in my point of view," he said. "It's the job of the government to fill the gaps, it's not the job of the government to find some group to pay for it. This solution has been found on your backs."

Lyons said he asked Lee to defer the new program until 2011 but she said no.

Lee could not be reached for comment by press time Friday.