I propose to take Questions Nos. 26, 28 and 253 together.
There are currently just over 2 million people, or 44.6% of the population with private health insurance. While this has fallen from a peak of 50.9% in 2008, Ireland continues to retain a high level of population holding voluntary private health insurance.
There are a number of measures being progressed by my Department to help maintain a competitive and sustainable private health insurance market.
My immediate focus is to keep health insurance affordable for as many people as possible. I have been strongly seeking much greater cost control in the private health insurance industry and established the Consultative Forum on Health Insurance, comprising representatives from the private health insurance companies, my Department, and the Health Insurance Authority, to generate ideas to address health insurance costs. Last year, I appointed an independent Chairperson Mr. Pat McLoughlin, to work with my Department and the insurers under the auspices of the Forum on a review process to give effect to real cost reductions in the private health insurance market. Mr. McLoughlin's first report was published on 26 December 2013, and the second phase of the review has commenced and will report within three months. In particular it will study further the drivers behind rising costs in the PHI industry and seek to address them.
I am supportive of the concept of Lifetime Community Rating (LCR) as a potential means of helping to address decreasing membership of the private health insurance market, in particular to provide an incentive for people to take out private health insurance at a younger age. This is important as the health insurance market requires a sizeable cohort of younger members, who are generally healthier, to offset the high cost of older and less healthy members, which is critical to the sustainability of our system of community-rated health insurance. My Department is working on proposals in this regard and will work, in conjunction with the Health Insurance Authority and industry stakeholders, to develop these further over the coming months.
With regard to the provision of a universal healthcare system, intensive work is currently underway on the preparation of a White Paper on Universal Health Insurance which will provide more detail on the UHI model for Ireland, including the overall design of the model, the standard package of services, funding mechanisms and the key stages of the journey to UHI. Drafting is at an advanced stage and I intend to bring the White Paper to Government very shortly with a view to publication as soon as possible.