(CNS): Health Minister Dwayne Seymour has said that people who are depending on their health insurance being paid via government’s Health Insurance Premium Payment Assistance Programme are covered, even though not all premiums have been paid. Problems with the assistance scheme were revealed by CNS Friday, and it is still not clear what has gone wrong. But Seymour has now implied that the ministry is waiting on invoices from the insurance companies before it can pay the premiums.

On Tuesday Seymour issued a recorded statement seeking to reassure people that they were covered, but CNS understands that this is not necessarily the case as not all insurance companies are in agreement with the ministry.

Nevertheless, Seymour said the Health Insurance Commission was liaising with insurance companies about retaining cover for customers while the ministry waits for the invoices. The HIC is administering the programme, which was created to cover, for at least three months, the premiums of furloughed workers who are not being paid as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But CNS learned last week that the premiums for those who had successfully applied and been approved for the help were not being paid, and as a result the health insurance companies had suspended or frozen cover.

We sent inquiries to the ministry but our questions were not answered. It remains unclear what had caused the delays in payment and why requests for invoices from government to the insurance companies were reportedly only made late last week for a scheme that was announced in May.

However, Seymour stated Tuesday that the ministry had received two invoices from approved health insurers on Friday and several more on Tuesday and it would be working to get them paid. He said that the ministry would now “provide a quick turnaround for settlement”, and that the scheme was designed to make the people’s health and well-being a priority.

Seymour said that so far 77 applications had been approved for payment of April premiums, totalling CI$83,872, and another 140 for May premiums, totalling CI$123,777.