Potter Heads To Bermuda In Search Of Individual Health Insurance For VI Residents

GOVERNMENT HO– USE, ST. CROIX — Lieutenant Governor Osbert Potter, during a press conference here on Monday, said he would travel to Bermuda next week to meet with health insurance companies based on the island; a British territory, in hopes of convincing them to offer packages to residents in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Mr. Potter said that since taking office, he has been working tirelessly to get individual healthcare coverage in the territory. “Presently, if you are not working for the government, or not part of a group health insurance policy, you are out in the cold,” said the lieutenant governor. “We know how difficult and expensive it is for individual health insurance.”

Mr. Potter said he has approached the U.S. health insurance firms, but those firms have been pulling out of the Affordable Health Care Act, which complicates any effort to offer similar packages in the territory.

But Bermuda, he said, has strong health insurance firms, and revealed that preliminary discussions have indicated their willingness to offer packages.

Traveling with Mr. Potter will be Gwendolyn Brady, director of Banking and Insurance, “to see if we could put a dent in the almost 25,000 to 30,000 Virgin Islanders who do not have it but desperately need it,” Mr. Potter said.

Mr. Potter also announced that those with delinquent property taxes should work with the Property Tax Division to develop a payment plan as the agency would resume property auctions in 2017.