Philipsburg:--- The executive council has taken a decision to implement the National Health Insurance Organization as of Monday announced commissioner Roy Marlin. Marlin told reporters that since there is no agreement between Curacao SVB and St. Maarten, the council has decided to go ahead and implement the NHI.Marlin said the island council already approved an independent organization to handle the NHI but government also has to enter into a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with Curacao. He said so far there is no agreement reached with Curacao because the proposals sent to St. Maarten is not in the island's best interest. Marlin said SVB Curacao wants to manage all funds (ABZ, AOV) while St. Maarten would have very little input into the management of these funds. Marlin said the executive council believes that this would be very risky and as such no agreement has been reached. Government he said will be dispatching another letter to Curacao with a final proposal. However, government wants those persons who are insured with SVB to receive continuity.
Marlin said the executive council intended to meet with the staff of SVB on Thursday where they will present a proposal which is to take the staff of SVB into the employment of the island government's territory temporarily and place them at Sector Health Care until the NHI institution is fully established. Marlin made clear that when the NHI is established then the staff of SVB will be employed by that institution.
The commissioner also said that the island government is not yet out of the woods with the SVB discussion. He said the proposal they are sending to Curacao is to allow them to manage the SVB funds until December 31 2010 until the establishment of the NHI is finalized. Marlin said it is too risky to turn over millions of guilders that are part of the reserve funds to an institution while government has very little say into the management of the funds.