 National Health Insurance, or NHI, is a system of health insurance that ensures a national population against the costs of health care. According to chief economists of research and policy in the Department of Finance, Janay Leons, St. Lucia sees relatively high out-of-pocket expenditures for health care. Each dollar that you spend out of pocket, that is money that could have been spent on other economic activity, education, and what have you. And health care and pain for your health care has the potential to bankrupt many persons to the extent that they are not covered or they don't have health insurance coverage. Only 18% of persons of working age have health insurance. Reasons for this include policy designs and perceptions towards insurance. Further design of the upcoming NHI system hopes to implement an affordable essential benefits package. One of the things the National Health Insurance Scheme is trying to do is to meet with the insurance providers and see to what extent we can design standardized products that can be at the price point that persons would be able to afford, but also design in a way that it may change the attitude and the perception with respect to insurance a bit. To the extent that you could do that, a lot of the debilitating costs that persons need to incur should a health event happen to them, that would be spared given the fact that they have health insurance coverage. And those monies can be spent on education, childcare, and a whole host of other areas. Government also intends to undertake the costs of coverage for those unable to afford it. From the Ministry of Health and Wellness, I am Jacques Kingston Compton reporting.