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
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @02:03PM
That will keep those foreigners away from the healthcare. Don't forget to make France pay for it.
(Score: 0, Troll) by BsAtHome on Friday November 25 2016, @03:20PM
We are all subjects to the Queen.
Her kingdom reigns over all of the world.
Therefore, everybody must pay the price, except the Brits, who are just petty folks bickering.
The Queen will show the way and the wall shall be built to keep out those who the Queen deems unworthy (everybody).
All hail the Queen, she who knows best.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @02:14PM
Since an utility bill is sufficient, it is obviously sufficient to have a residential address in the UK (because that's all an utility bill proves). Also note that an utility bill doesn't have your photo.
So you could just have a document mailed to your address to prove that you live at that address. So have a web form where you enter your name and address, and then you get sent at no cost except the postage an "NIH card" to that address which you then can show at the hospital. That card in turn doesn't need to contain anything but your name and your address, and something that indicates that it is an "NIH card".
Only remaining problem: What about the homeless?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Webweasel on Friday November 25 2016, @03:00PM
Right, because in the modern UK we get posted utility bills right?
BZZZZ! WRONG!
EVERYTHING is paperless. I have not had a bill of any kind in over 3 years now, EVERYTHING is paperless billing.
So, will you accept the printed out email that I could have faked? Fuck no. Will my utility provider send me a paper bill? FUCK NO.
Not everyone has a passport either. (Also, you need both. Photo ID and proof of address one is not enough)
Nothing regarding this has been actually thought out by those in charge (who I bet, have private health care)
This is classic divide and conquer by the Tory party. IMMIGANTS TERK MY JERB. I mean IMMIGANTS STOLE MY NHS.
No, the tory party are destroying the NHS by trying to privatize it. But don't look at that! Look over here at the IMMIGANTS taking away your NHS, they are to blame.
Divide and conquer. Just like Brexit, Just like Trump. Ignore the real problems while we fuck you because your too busy arguing about stupid shit that don't matter.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday November 25 2016, @03:25PM
> No, the tory party are destroying the NHS by trying to privatize it.
Slight correction: The tories are trying to destroy the NHS IN ORDER to privatise it: They slash funding (while shuffling the figures and claiming to be investing), overwork the staff, attack their morale and impose all sorts of counter-productive bureaucracy until the level of service hits rock bottom. Then, when patients are stacked up in the corridors, babies are being born in car parks, burnt out junior doctors are operating on the wrong organs and underqualified, underpaid temporary HCAs on zero-hours contracts are inadvertently spreading infections and missing obs, the tories will use the tabloids to shout "LOOK! SOCIALISED HEALTHCARE DOESN'T WORK! PRIVATISE PRIVATISE PRIVATISE!" In this way, they hope to finally break the British public's long and deeply-held reverence of the NHS.
The goal of privatisation, of course, is for ministers to sell off billions in publicly owned property and pocket as much of the proceeds as possible. The fact that their little get-richer-quick scheme causes fatality and medical crises in the population they ostensibly represent doesn't bother them in the least because, as parent poster points out above, they and their families have private healthcare so fuck the plebs.
It's also worth noting that despite years of this kind of abuse, the NHS still provides a world class service with outstanding results. Not as good as it was, but I'd still take it over pretty much any other healthcare service you'd care to name. That is due almost entirely to the downtrodden but dedicated professionals on the coalface, the vast majority of whom deserve fucking medals. I am confident it will weather the current storm, and will eventually be restored to glory when a half-way sane government (Corbyn?) finally gets into power. It's just a shame we have to put up with this kind of crap in the meantime.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Webweasel on Friday November 25 2016, @03:43PM
It has survived this far, long may it continue.
It's also worth noting that despite years of this kind of abuse, the NHS still provides a world class service with outstanding results.
Considering the rise in demand, the service from the NHS is phenomenal. Compare to the demands in the 1980's to today I am stunned that the NHS has coped as well as it has.
Why anyone would choose to go into Nursing in the current environment boggles me. It shows that John Nash's game theory is bullshit and that humans are altruistic. Praise to those people who choose that career.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @06:20PM
Why anyone would choose to go into Nursing in the current environment boggles me
Job security? I does seem nursing is the saving grace for many ne'er-do-wells.
I'm less impressed by the altruism of nurses, and more by their competency. It might be that the burnout rate is exceedingly high, so i see more of the worst.
*20 years working as a nurse*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @09:17PM
>Why anyone would choose to go into Nursing in the current environment boggles me. It shows that John Nash's game theory is bullshit and that humans are altruistic. Praise to those people who choose that career.
I've always found these comments interesting as they are uttered by people through a series of rationalizations would never dream of proving Nash wrong by their own example.
Maybe carry the load yourself a bit?
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Sunday November 27 2016, @06:53PM
This wasn't meant to be a wall of text...
As a tiny cog in the NHS machine, you have no idea how glad it makes me to see people say things like this!
We get competing, mutually-exclusive targets, software written by actual chimps (may be only partially true), promotion purely on either the Peter Principle (seriously - head of information governance? A former nurse with no experience or qualifications in anything beyond nursing) or outright nepotism, the internal market and a whole host of other nonsensical shite which exists purely to waste time and taxpayers' money, but most of us actually want to see a sick person come in and that same person walk out the other side well again, or at least in a better state than when they came in. Management incompetence and a general lack of understanding of all the steps involved in getting the patient from referral to treatment - yes, we do have to find out what's wrong with them before cutting them open and taking bits out - puts incredible pressure on staff, causing morale to plummet. So we have the worst aspects of the public sector distilled and amplified repeatedly until the entire thing collapses in on itself. The devolved parts of the UK are in a marginally better state than England, but the Tories and their supporters will not allow that to continue unchecked.
This is the reason social care is being defunded: it's not rocket science to work out that if there's no money to look after the elderly (or otherwise) in need of care when they're well enough to go home from hospital following admission, yet not recovered enough to be left to their own devices, then they stay in hospital to recover as the hospital gets penalised if they're readmitted within 30 days! Now add in the entitled arseholes who know their rights and pay their taxes so have no problem with shoving granny in the hospital with "chest pains" over the weekend so they can go on a night out or a weekend away which, by the way, is a far greater problem than this "health tourism" bollocks that the tabloids rant about, and you have a recipe for the destruction of the NHS. Write to your MP and demand they sort out the funding for health and social care or in 10 years or so there won't be an NHS. The number of elderly people is only going to increase and they are, in general, more prone to problems that will land them in hospital and then keep them there for a while, so the pressures we see now are only going to increase.
And keep a close eye on Manchester. There's some decent ideas there, but the people most involved in making them work are rather too friendly with the likes of David Cameron and the other free-market-or-die muppets in government/elsewhere, so things might 'fail' to prove that public sector healthcare is useless.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday November 25 2016, @02:20PM
Just goes to show how fucking low the Tories will go.
In related news, many NHS doctors are saying they will refuse these asinine paperwork checks: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/22/doctors-threaten-to-boycott-plan-for-patients-to-show-id-for-nhs-care [theguardian.com]
Good for them.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday November 25 2016, @03:09PM
And with UKIP taking Conservative votes, the Conservatives have to be even more vindictive to tempt back defectors...
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @05:50PM
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!
(Score: 4, Informative) by turgid on Friday November 25 2016, @06:33PM
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.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @06:35PM
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
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).
(Score: 5, Interesting) by theluggage on Friday November 25 2016, @02:35PM
Stupid situation...
Nobody trusts government to implement an ID card system without turning it into Big Brother, letting hackers walk off with the data or simply creating yet another massive government IT project SNAFU.
On the other hand, we need such a system. There are occasions on which we need to prove our ID and/or home address (unless you demand the freedom to have criminals open bank accounts in your name) and banks et. al. are turning to all sorts of stupid, insecure and potentially discriminatory methods to do it. I have a passport and a driving license (which aren't independent - last time I renewed my driving license they used the photo on file from my passport), but I'm still not spoilt for choice when faced with a list of acceptable ID: I usually need to turn up a utility bill, phone (landline, not mobile) or bank statement to open bank/savings accounts etc... at a time when banks and utilities are imploring you to switch to online statements. Not everybody accepts printouts of online statements - although I can't see that they're actually any worse than "originals" which prove nothing unless someone takes the trouble to fact-check them. I can't imagine how a young person or legal immigrant setting up on their own for the first time bootstraps this mess.
However, as far as the NHS goes I think the BBC report did point out that the "losses" addressed to "health tourism" were a spit in the ocean as far as NHS's money problems are concerned, so there's a big question as to whether this scheme will bring any worthwhile gains - and as TFA points out its a non-starter when genuine UK citizens are not obliged to hold passports or driving licenses.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @03:49PM
> (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.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by theluggage on Friday November 25 2016, @04:28PM
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
> 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
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
> . 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.
(Score: 1) by garrulus on Friday November 25 2016, @02:42PM
GO HOME.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday November 25 2016, @03:43PM
>:And whats wrong about this?
You want the list? OK, here we go:
1 - It complicates healthcare provision. Do you really want to be fishing around in your pocket for ID in order to get your arms sewn back on? What if you don't happen to have your passport on you the day you get savaged by a rabid badger?
2 - It will inevitably deny healthcare to legitimate users: As described elsethread, plenty of British people would have trouble providing a satisfactory level of ID. Of course this might be deliberate, to generate demand for a national ID card.
3 - People determined to abuse the system will find a way round it anyway. This leads to an escalating arms-race of byzantine methods of screening vs illegal workarounds to the point where legitimate users can't access the system at all. For an example, try claiming working tax credit or disability benefit, I dare you. You'll be gouging your eyes out with a biro within a fortnight.
4 - It turns doctors and nurses into immigration officials. If you can't perceive a problem with that, I suggest you visit an NHS doctor today and get your brain checked.
5 - It introduces an expensive and inefficient layer of bureaucracy into a system that really doesn't need it. Eventually the cost of the nationality-checking will equal or exceed the cost of the problem it attempts to (and fails) to solve.
6 - All of this doesn't actually address any particularly significant problem. Healthcare tourism is a minute fraction of the NHS' budget. There are far better things the government could be spending their time and our money on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @03:54PM
Silly rabbit. Healthcare is not for patients. Its for bureaucrats, politicians, demagoguery and lucrative service contracts.
Also, roools!! Following rules is more important than doing work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @03:55PM
But but his rage boner!?!? How else can he push back against those filthy illegals that took his jeerrb???
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday November 25 2016, @03:56PM
Almost forgot:
7 - If people (whether illegal immigrants, legal immigrants or legitimate UK nationals without the necessary documentation) become nervous about visiting the doctor for fear of being deported, then they will stop going to the doctor. That will not only result in the direct suffering of those people and their families and their caregivers and their employers and the economy, but it could also lead to some serious fucking health problems on a national scale. What if people stop taking their kids for vaccinations for fear of deportation? I think we've talked enough on this forum about the dangers non-vaccination. And don't get me started on STDs. We have enough trouble as it is trying to keep a lid on that shit. You want an AIDS epidemic because people are too scared to get anti-virals, or even to get diagnosed?
Money nvested in healthcare pays ofr itself.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday November 25 2016, @05:45PM
I see what you did there. You conflated illegals with legals or legitimate UK nationals with regard to fear of being deported. If illegals have to refuse healthcare and suffer ill effects or be deported, then good. They made the choice to break the law, and they should have known from first principles that if their very existence in that country depends on breaking the law, then they should be prepared to suffer any ill effects as a result of their bad decisions. Are those laws just? Maybe, maybe not, but they rolled the dice and they should be vigilant about consequences.
Even worse, they are so selfish as to open up their offspring and families to such ill effects. Regardless of what you believe, illegal immigrants are not the best and brightest, they are not doctors, lawyers, and engineers. What they are are unskilled leeches unwilling to immigrate, who demand to be treated like Pashas while contributing absolutely nothing. They are parasites, they are scum. They refuse to integrate and form violent ghettos and attack the very society and values which have shown them mercy.
They should not be deported, but either put to work in camps in exchange for 3 hots and a cot (to be fair, also given the opportunity to integrate and prove their willingness to work over a period of years, able to eventually earn citizenship and be set free in this manner) or executed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @06:30PM
None of what you wrote is a rebuttal to the fact that even illegal immigrants are part of society and their illness is our illness. Herd immunity requires everyone, regardless of legal status, to be vaccinated.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday November 25 2016, @07:06PM
Illegals bring in all kinds of exciting exotic diseases which would otherwise not be there -- like whooping cough, drug-resistant tuberculosis, Leprosy, Dengue Fever, to name a few!
You sound like one of those liberal White girls with an upper middle-class upbringing who graduates from Womens' Studies and goes to Haiti to sleep with the natives.
Your herpes is everybody's herpes!
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday November 25 2016, @07:40PM
Nigel Farage said that foreigners bring AIDS into the country, and in doing so put a burden on the NHS. He said this during the Brexit referendum campaign.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @08:49PM
> Illegals bring in all kinds of exciting exotic diseases which would otherwise not be there
As if no tourist has ever brought an infection with them into the country.
But regardless of how the disease got there, refusing to treat it only makes it spread.
> You sound like one of those liberal White girls
MD actually. You, on the other hand, sound like a right cunt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @11:38PM
Drug resistant bacteria would exist regardless of immigration.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday November 26 2016, @12:15AM
Being an asshole would exist regardless of altruism. Let's not only tolerate it, but accept it into society!
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 26 2016, @03:50AM
You are still allowed to post, so looks like we are accepting assholes into our society.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday November 28 2016, @11:16AM
> I see what you did there. You conflated illegals with legals or legitimate UK nationals with regard to fear of being deported.
I see what you did there. In your rush to froth about the evil dirty foreigners, you deliberately dodged the entire point of the thread, story and summary, and made the erroneous and simplistic assumption that this half-arsed, half-witted abortion of a proposed scheme will in any way be effective at sifting illegal immigrants from legal immigrants, legal foreign residents or even fully legal UK-born citizens. If young Mohammed is of Iraqi descent but UK born and bred and a full UK citizen, but happens to have a bit of an accent and no passport, in today's political climate I'd fully understand why he might be nervous of an immigration check at the hospital. All you need is one vindictive, racist turd of a jobsworth on the hospital's front desk and suddenly Mo is on the next flight to Baghdad, or at the very least facing accusations from the home office leading to months or years of unnecessary and uncompensated paperwork, harassment and stress attempting to prove a negative to the uncaring, grinding, bureaucratic machinery of the government. A few cases like that and suddenly a quarter of the population of Bradford is avoiding the NHS, suffering and dying of treatable illnesses, incubating transmissible disease and trying to have babies at home without any modern healthcare. Is that really a price worth paying just for one more chance to put the boot into the illegals?
You also completely fail to take in the central point of the post you reply to which is that, as much as you may like to ignore the fact, illegal immigrants are still human beings. Diseases they harbour can infect the rest of us, so treating those diseases reduces disease infection rates. It is in fact entirely possible to justify universal, non-discriminatory healthcare purely in terms of economic self-interest, without any need to appeal to your non-existent senses of "mercy", "altruism" or "basic humanity".
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Friday November 25 2016, @10:28PM
3 - People determined to abuse the system will find a way round it anyway. This leads to an escalating arms-race of byzantine methods of screening vs illegal workarounds to the point where legitimate users can't access the system at all. For an example, try claiming working tax credit or disability benefit, I dare you. You'll be gouging your eyes out with a biro within a fortnight.
Beyond true. About 8 years ago I was in the child tax credits scheme. I'm a single dad with 2 kids and back then their child care was paid by the state. Until the day I got a letter saying I didn't have any kids and I owed the gov £25k in child tax credits.
The "system" could not deal with a complaint about this. I could only post an appeal to be reviewed in 3 months, all of the time not having £1500 a month to pay for child care, that I would normally get (praise be to some of the things the Blair gov did).
I had to use my "skillz" to track down the home phone number of the director of the tax credits system and talk to his wife to get the situation sorted.
One hell of a week that was.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 3, Informative) by RedGreen on Friday November 25 2016, @03:43PM
Around here (Canada) we have this fancy new technology called a Health Card a plastic card that resembles a credit card that every person entitled to health care gets, seems relatively simple for the UK to do the same. Before they came out with the plastic we had paper ones to show at the Doctors office/Hospital.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 25 2016, @03:56PM
Here in OUtback, Nowhere, US of A, I still have a stupid paper card. Get a new one every several months, it rides around in my wallet, and when I have a use for it - THE DAMNED THING IS ILLEGIBLE!!
Plastic cards make sense, whether it's a national health care, or some crappy private health care foisted on you by your employer.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by RS3 on Friday November 25 2016, @05:06PM
Laminator. They're cheap and one will pay for itself by reducing aggravation and wasted time.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Friday November 25 2016, @04:05PM
"New" as in last century "new", too.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday November 25 2016, @06:37PM
Here in Blighty, at the age of 18, we are issued with a National Insurance number card, just like a credit card. We also have a paper card with our NHS numbers on it. We don't have to show it to get treatment, though.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Friday November 25 2016, @06:47PM
Figures click bait BS article then. If that is the case then make people show the card, problem solved.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday November 25 2016, @07:18PM
The real story is that the right-wing media that got us to Brexit on the back of xenophobia are ratcheting up the hate. That's why it's in the news.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Friday November 25 2016, @07:56PM
Yes had realized that once I knew of the totally simple solution available. The forces of darkness are everywhere just waiting in the wings to swoop down. Add in Orwell was just about thirty years early on his bleak outlook of what man was to become we are all in for interesting times ahead...
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday November 26 2016, @10:28AM
You are applying logic and common sense to the solution of the problem. Are you sure that you are commenting in the correct story?
I agree 100% with what you have said, but we are clearly not following the illogical conclusions that some other commentators appear to be reaching.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dunbal on Friday November 25 2016, @04:03PM
A passport is not proof of RESIDENCY. It's proof of citizenship. To qualify for NHS services you need to be a legal RESIDENT of the UK for however many number of months it is. There is no way, however, that someone like me who has a British passport (dual citizen) should qualify for free NHS healthcare since I live in Panama.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by pTamok on Friday November 25 2016, @05:07PM
If you pay tax and/or National Insurance to the UK authorities, despite living outside the UK, there is a good argument that you should be entitled to NHS care.
Note that some people live in more than one country, and it is also perfectly possible to be tax-resident in more than one country simultaneously (one does not imply the other).
On the flip-side, it is also possible to arrange one's affairs such that you are tax-resident in no country. It requires a bit of travel, but for the sufficiently rich, if you don't mind not being able to live in the same place for more than a short period each year, then it is perfectly possible to spend a short stay in each of several countries, paying tax in none. I knew someone who did precisely this, rotating between three countries, moving between hemispheres, so never saw winter. Some people like that lifestyle, others don't.
And, on the topic of proving one's identity to the NHS: as far as I know, there is no legal requirement for those born and resident in the UK to possess photo ID in the UK. Long ago, the NHS did issue cards with an NHS number on it, but people inevitably lost them, or did not have them on their person, or couldn't remember the number. Doctors tended to take the humanitarian view that you treated the patient first and dealt with other things later - certainly in Accident & Emergency. Chronic conditions, I don't know about.
As others have pointed out, the costs of treating people not entitled to NHS treatment are a minor number in the NHS accounts. While the number seems high, when spread over all the treatment events administered by the NHS, it is not particularly material. It is, on the other hand, a good stalking horse for demonising illegal immigrants, and generating a 'need' for proof of identity, for which the government has just the scheme...
(Score: 4, Informative) by Whoever on Friday November 25 2016, @07:42PM
This. A thousand times this.
The cost of having a bureaucracy to charge for treatments to those not entitled to free treatment plus the cost of providing some kind of ID to those that do not currently have ID is likely to be larger than the amounts recovered. There is likely to be no net financial benefit from attempting to charge for treatments that should not be provided at no charge.
In the US, the cost of billing and insurance is about 15-20% of healthcare costs. Any attempt to bill a small subset of the patients would incur a much higher percentage in billing costs (in part because in the UK, the cost of providing healthcare is much lower, while the billing costs would likely be similar).
(Score: 1) by dr_barnowl on Saturday November 26 2016, @04:32PM
The cost to the American health care system of insurance company overheads is more than our entire healthcare budget.
50% more.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Friday November 25 2016, @08:47PM
If you pay tax and/or National Insurance to the UK authorities, despite living outside the UK
While I am sure there are plenty of people in the world who are so rich that they pay taxes even when they don't have to, I am not one of them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @05:30PM
But some sort of proof of residency is not unreasonable. Here, even if you dont drive you can get a state ID. There is really no excuse for not doing this, unless you support fraud. Ours is subsidized if you are poor . They even come to the citizens on a regular schedule for those that have no transportation.
(Score: 1) by fraxinus-tree on Friday November 25 2016, @05:47PM
Here in Bulgaria, using public healthcare services requires fingerprint registration.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday November 25 2016, @06:45PM
Just hope you don't lose your fingers in an accident!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @11:53PM
Here we have a chip implanted inside the skull.
(Score: 5, Informative) by fritsd on Friday November 25 2016, @06:01PM
I vaguely remembered reading about this.
Now I found a relevant article from BBC News from 2013:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-24616801 [bbc.com]
So it's the UK politics' own fault that this money is not recouped.
If the government would construct a small "Office of Recovering Foreign Sicko's Money" and staff it with a few dozen trained telephone operators and access to the health databases,
they could change the policy easily to: "just order the hospitals to send the bills for foreigners to the O.R.F.S.M. with a yellow sticky note with as much as possible details on country of residence, name, foreign health insurer, and passport number".
That would apparently save (£ 387 million * (percentage ORFSM efficiently reclaimed) - ORFSM operating costs).
If 25% of foreigners would respond truthfully, the NHS would save (96 - approx 2) = ₤ 94 million per annum.
In less than 138 years, it could pay for the UK's part in the Joint Strike Fighter programme!
Most people are probably honest, so it would more likely be double the revenue.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday November 25 2016, @06:39PM
Stop talking sense on the Intertubes.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].