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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, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @05:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @05:50PM (#432919)

    HOW DARE these monsters actually attempt to limit free healthcare to the legal citizens whose taxes pay for it!!!!? As we all know, everybody should get everything free all the time, and the magic money fairy will take care of it!

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by turgid on Friday November 25 2016, @06:33PM

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 25 2016, @06:33PM (#432946) Journal

    The scale of the problem, as usual, has been vastly exaggerated by the rabid right-wing tabloid news papers, the same propaganda operations that got us Brexit.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @06:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @06:35PM (#432949)

    The problem is that they're also harassing ordinary citizens to do this. Defenses of the TSA often come in the form of something similar to your comment, but they're missing the point as well.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @10:31PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @10:31PM (#433020)

    In addition to what the others said in reply, it's important to realise that (a) the 'problem' is a tiny fraction of the overall cost of the system (b) that there are far more serious problems, specifically the lack of funding from government, that need to be solved by...er... increasing funding (c) the cost of 'fixing' the 'problem' will far exceed the actual loss i.e. a net further loss to the NHS. All whilst causing pain for legitimate users and frankly unnecessary, cruel, and potentially dangerous conditions for 'illegitimate' users (see other post about vaccination and herd immunity).