December 10, 2011Dear Sir,Last night, the Health Insurance Department issued a press statement saying: “The implementation of co-payments under Future Care for outside specialists and general practitioners performing services at the hospital, like the implementation of co-payments on pharmacy benefits in April 2010, were items that were originally intended to be done at the outset, but were delayed for technical and logistical reasons.”“The Health Insurance Department (HID) discovered a system implementation error, which resulted in medical providers being paid more than they should have been.”Health Minister Zane DeSilva said in response to a query: ”Future Care has not changed its benefits policy ...”Wow! If I did not know better I could have said that previous quotes were taken from a script from Yes, Minister. The way in which the “facts” are presented is sometimes as important as the facts themselves. It is impossible to “discover” anything if you knew about it from the outset!This is yet another costly example of the continuing shuffling of the Government’s administration. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars have been unnecessarily picked up by the already beleaguered taxpayers due to the fact that there has been no one in charge, long enough, to see the Future Care program through. Three Ministers of Health, untold numbers of civil servants, have all had a hand in this. True to form, monies are gone and no one is held accountable for the misspending of funds.Blame the health care providers for being overpaid but don’t hold accountable the Health Insurance Department (HID) that overpaid them.Blame the senior citizen for not knowing what HID did not tell them. Don’t make accountable the HID for not doing its job. This management style will only ensure one thing that the future of Future Care will be short lived. I don’t mind being chastised by the Minister for doing our part in keeping health care costs under control. However, any possible savings are quickly negated by inefficient payment of claims by the HID.DAVID SULLIVANPaget