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It is my fervent hope all seniors have a better understanding of FutureCare following the concerns my colleagues and I have voiced over the past year.

Our aim has been to ensure the programme is open, fair and affordable, as well as sustainable for the country.

This could have been a non-controversial exercise but Government's roll-out of FutureCare created all sorts of confusion for seniors - confusion we had to address.

When we challenged Government to explain, we were attacked.

When we pushed them to clarify, they resorted to name-calling.

We recognise the Westminster system of Government can sometimes get heated and ugly but the aim is to sharpen policies, improve programmes and ultimately deliver better Government to the people.

We're prepared to deal with the ups and downs of the system because we have used it to force Government to work harder to explain FutureCare to seniors.

Contradiction

Government says I'm the one sowing confusion but they forget to own up to:

* The contradiction between the Premier's election promise to "provide every Bermudian above the age of 65 with guaranteed health care" and FutureCare's first year roll-out that excluded most seniors;

* Last-minute restrictions in the 2009 launch of FutureCare which shut out many seniors;

* Confusion among seniors about who was eligible and who was not;

* Two prices being quoted for the same FutureCare coverage.

The latest attack against me came last week in the Bermuda Sun.

It asserted I was wrong to say the 2009 launch of FutureCare was under-promoted and questioned our call to narrow FutureCare to all seniors aged 65 and older using a means test to determine need.

Let's deal first with the under-promoted launch.

Government only announced the qualifications for FutureCare on March 11, 2009, just three weeks before its launch.

When seniors learned they had to be on HIP to qualify, HIP was "inundated" with requests to join.

Government quickly shut down new enrolments by restricting eligibility to seniors on HIP prior to the March 11 announcement.

It did so because it concluded FutureCare "could not financially support the intake".

I was particularly disturbed by this turn of events because Government until that point had not advertised the deadlines or the criteria for joining FutureCare. This was because they were engaged in a calculated numbers game, where FutureCare planners had to balance economic and budgetary realities against the Premier's promise of FutureCare for all.

Although Government takes issue with my description of the April 1 roll-out of FutureCare as "under-promoted", the Health Minister evaded my Parliamentary request for the "scripts and dates of all advertisements published before April 1, 2009, for the roll out of FutureCare".

Whether it was the late announcement that FutureCare would be a phased programme or the failure to promote application deadlines and eligibility criteria, the fact is seniors were not well informed about what they needed to do to enrol in FutureCare.

Our call for means testing was also questioned.

This way of determining eligibility for the most needy is based on our concern that Bermuda will not be able to afford FutureCare.

The most conservative actuarial forecasts indicate FutureCare will impose debilitating costs on the country. Government says that it already applies means testing through seniors who came to FutureCare via Financial Assistance.

But this does not apply to seniors who come to FutureCare through other eligibilities.

The result is seniors on Futurecare, who can afford private coverage, being subsidised by taxpayers.

This is wrong for moral and economic reasons.

Burdened

The bottom line is the programme should be narrowed to seniors aged 65 and older using means testing to determine need.

This is a sensible approach to take, especially given Government has already burdened Bermuda with unprecedented levels of borrowing and debt.

We have to be realistic. Our aim is for a programme that is fair and affordable for seniors and sustainable for all other taxpayers.

This is what my colleagues and I want.

This is what makes us challenge Government when we see them veering from those clear goals.

LOUISE JACKSON is the Shadow Minister of Health and Seniors.

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