Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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171. To ask the Minister for Health if he will provide details of the envisaged basket of care for universal health insurance; what this will include; if an average cost to the public has been calculated; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9532/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The White Paper on Universal Health Insurance,which was published in April 2014, provides that under Universal Health Insurance everyone will have access to care based on need, not income. Each person will have a choice of health insurer and will be covered for a standard package of health services. The White Paper also sets out a process for determining the UHI standard package of health services, involving the establishment of an Expert Commission to make recommendations in relation to the services to be funded under UHI.

I have already indicated that it will not be possible to introduce a full UHI system by 2019, as set out in the White Paper. In this context I decided to postpone, for the moment, establishing the proposed Expert Commission. My Department is currently focusing on a major costing exercise which will examine the cost implications of a change to a multi-payer, universal health insurance model, as proposed in the White Paper. The analysis will include a review of evidence of the effects on healthcare spending of alternative systems of financing and of changes in financing methods and entitlements. It will also estimate the cost of UHI for individuals, households and the Exchequer, based on a number of options in relation to the UHI standard package of health services. I expect to have the initial results from this exercise in April, following which I will revert to Government with a roadmap on the next steps to UHI.