Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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415. To ask the Minister for Health the way he will move to a situation whereby this country creates a fair and equal health service where persons receive health care on the basis of need rather than income. [36920/14]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I am committed to a major agenda of health reform, in line with the commitments contained in the Programme for Government and our policy statement, Future Health. I want to push ahead as soon as possible with key reforms in areas such as extending free GP care on a phased basis, improving the management of chronic diseases, implementing key financial reforms including Money Follows the Patient, and establishing hospital groups as a critical enabler of improving patient quality and efficiency.

When I became Minister for Health I reviewed our progress to date and the timescales for implementing very important reforms, including Universal Health Insurance, based on universal entitlement to a single-tier health service, that is based on need, not income.

I remain committed to implementing the important improvements that a UHI system is intended to bring. While I believe that it will not be possible to introduce a full UHI system by 2019, as envisaged in the White Paper on Universal Health Insurance, I want to emphasise my commitment to implementing reforms based on UHI and the White Paper. In order to do this I want to examine some key elements further and then to decide on the best way forward.

The Government published the White Paper on Universal Health Insurance in April of this year and my Department initiated a consultation process on it. An independent analysis of the submissions is underway and I expect to receive this report in the next week.

My Department has also initiated a major costing exercise to estimate the cost of UHI for households and the Exchequer and is working closely with the ESRI and the Health Insurance Authority and initial costings should be available by the end of quarter one in 2015.

The independent thematic analysis of submissions from the consultation process on the White Paper and the results of the major costing exercise on UHI will assist in charting a clear course towards the objective of a universal, single-tier health service.