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posted by martyb on Friday November 25 2016, @01:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the make-foreigners-pay dept.

Patients could be forced to show their passports before being granted NHS [UK's National Health Service] care as part of a bid to crack down on foreign visitors, a senior official has said.

The Department of Health is examining whether patients should have to show two forms of ID to get some elements of NHS care, saying this was "controversial" but already happening in some places.

Chris Wormald, the most senior civil servant at the Department of Health, said in a hearing at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the NHS has a "lot further to go" when it comes to reclaiming money from foreign visitors.

[...] "Now it is obviously quite a controversial thing to do to say to the entire population you now have to prove identity."

[...] But PAC chairwoman Meg Hillier expressed concern about British residents that don't have photo ID and those who would struggle to find a utility bill.

"I have constituents who have no photo IDs," she said.

"Because they have never travelled they have no passport, they have no driver's licence because they have never driven, they still live at home because they can't afford to move out so they've never had a utility bill in their name.

"(They are) perfectly entitled to health care - British born, British resident - how are you going to make sure that people have access easily to the National Health Service without having to go through a very humiliating and impossible to meet set of demands?"

Source: The Independent


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @03:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @03:49PM (#432865)

    > (unless you demand the freedom to have criminals open bank accounts in your name)

    If a criminal wants to open a bank account and put their money into it, that's fine by me.

    > banks et. al. are turning to all sorts of stupid, insecure and potentially discriminatory methods to do it.

    There is no such thing as a perfect system. There are better and worse systems, but not only is there no such thing as perfect, one-size fits all is also problematic because its a single point of failure. What is needed are verification systems that are domain specific. The higher the stakes, the more confidence the system needs to provide. Credit cards are a great example, the merchant agreements actually forbid the merchants from requiring ID unless there are exceptional circumstances. Simply having the physical card is sufficient because its more important to visa and mastercard that customers use the card (rather than cash or a check) than it is to prevent every last chance of fraud.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by theluggage on Friday November 25 2016, @04:28PM

    by theluggage (1797) on Friday November 25 2016, @04:28PM (#432885)

    Simply having the physical card is sufficient because its more important to visa and mastercard that customers use the card (rather than cash or a check) than it is to prevent every last chance of fraud.

    Important for the card company, maybe, especially if they've done the usual "in-source the profit, out-source the liabilities" shuffle so that the cost of fraud doesn't show up on the same balance sheet as the profit. Not so good for the end user who falls victim to fraud and can expect a shedload of hassle and uncompensated expenses before hopefully they get their money back, or gets arrested because someone has used their stolen card details on a kiddie porn site.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @06:25PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @06:25PM (#432943)

      > Not so good for the end user who falls victim to fraud and can expect a shedload of hassle and uncompensated expenses before hopefully they get their money back

      First you worried about criminals putting money into bank accounts and now you think its the end user's money rather than the bank's money that is stolen in cases of credit card fraud. Its right in the name -- credit.

      • (Score: 2) by theluggage on Friday November 25 2016, @10:18PM

        by theluggage (1797) on Friday November 25 2016, @10:18PM (#433014)

        First you worried about criminals putting money into bank accounts

        Follow the thread. I mentioned fraudsters opening bank accounts. All sorts of crooked reasons for opening a fraudulent bank account - none of them helpful for the poor shmuck who's ID gets used.

        and now you think its the end user's money rather than the bank's money that is stolen in cases of credit card fraud.

        No, its pretty much your money that gets stolen until and unless the bank accepts that the transaction is fraudulent, and its definitely your time, phone bill, shoe leather and patience that get wasted talking to the bank, getting your cards re-activated, dealing with fallout from other bounced payments etc. Hopefully you won't be (e.g.) trying to check into a hotel 1000 miles from home in a foreign country when the bank kills your card. Sure, if you're lucky the bank will cancel the fraudulent charge promptly before you actually have to part with the cash, because banks always give faultless service, never screw up and never quibble about refunding consequential costs.

        Its right in the name -- credit.

        I suggest that you immediately cut up any credit cards you have on your person and stick to cash, because if you think that "credit" means "the bank's money" there are a few subtle, but important, nuances of the word that you haven't quite picked up on yet.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 26 2016, @03:48AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 26 2016, @03:48AM (#433101)

          > . I mentioned fraudsters opening bank accounts

          Yes. A bank account none of your money in it is no risk to you.

          > No, its pretty much your money that gets stolen until and unless the bank accepts that the transaction is fraudulent,

          You really don't know how credit cards work.
          By federal law at most you are liable for is $50. All major banks make that zero. None of them even put up a fight when you dispute a charge. Worst case the merchant comes at you separately for non-payment after the bank does a charge-back. But the number of times that actually happens when you weren't actually fucking over the merchant approaches zero.

          > if you think that "credit" means "the bank's money" there are a few subtle, but important, nuances of the word that you haven't quite picked up on yet.

          Nuances which, of course, you are unable to articulate because you are a damn moron.