I’ve noticed quite major changes in the attitudes to migrants and foreigners in many Western countries recently. Okay, some of this was predicted as it tends to go together with economic problems, but the bit that really sticks out for me is the use of language to refer to migrants.
This headline is very misleading, ‘foreign care’, when it should say foreign residents of the UK, who in my mind should be entitled to medical care if they pay their taxes and social contributions like everybody else. They want non EU nationals who are residents to pay more than other residents.
Then this from Australia. Refugees and asylum seekers are now to be referred to as ‘illegals’. The immigration processing service has also been outsourced to private corporations. The changing of terminology is a classic corporate move.
The language is changing, and this is not a good sign.
The Tory move isn’t anything to do with costs to the NHS. A £200 a year levy would cost more to enforce and collect than any profit they would make. It’s just part of their general policy to focus people’s dissatisfaction with the state of the UK on easily identifiable targets, such as the disabled, and away from their party and their cronies, who evade billions in taxes every year. When they were last in power it was asylum seekers and single mothers. Cynical and appalling.
The headline first of all
‘NHS ‘can save £500m’ on foreign care’
Then this seems to target non-EU national residents of the UK , as they mention the extra 200 GBP charge per year for up to five years. So are they are a ‘foreigner’ first or a 'resident of the UK? When you do stop being a foreigner and why are all foreigners lumped together? Why is it ‘foreign care’ if they are getting care in the UK?
I don’t actually get the point of it really, there’s not much details in it beyond a link to a report, it seems the NHS is at fault for not claiming back fees from foreign health insurers, nor does it mention how much British people get in terms of healthcare in other countries. Maybe all the British overseas should be hauled over for money when they access healthcare?
This is part of a general trend of targeting immigrants in the UK and pushing non-EU immigrants out first, even spouses of UK citizens are not welcome.
They covered this on BBC last week…they seemed to be talking about visitors to the country paying their fair share if they seek medical treatment, not those who are legally living there (nationality notwithstanding). That’s how I understood it anyway.
If so why are they asking people on five year visas or five years and less within the country to pay 200 GBP extra a year?
It would be like us foreign residents in Taiwan paying more for healthcare than locals.
In Taiwan I believe they have a six month residency rule and then you join the NHI scheme,
I also have a problem with the headline ‘foreign care’, it’s sensationalist.
I think the term I should have used in the title was ‘xenophobia’, not racism.
I’m not sure…maybe it would apply to long-term visitors (6 months?) and those who are claiming asylum and awaiting a decision on their case (possibly taking years). My impression from the report I saw was that people who file paperwork to remain in the country legally (I would assume spouses of UK citizens would fall into this category) would be exempt.
As someone said during the report, “This is a national healthcare system, not an international healthcare system.” Fair enough IMO.
We are planning on the possibility of eventually settling in the UK, and I am a non-EU spouse…I fully plan on the possibility of having to pay for healthcare until the time that I am naturalized, and I think that’s fair as I will not have put anything into their tax system up until that point.
When I studied in Australia I also had to pay for health insurance. Again, I think that’s fair.
I have never felt unwelcome in the UK, quite the opposite (even though I’m American). We lived there for a while about 12 years ago and I visit often. However, the tone has definitely changed over the years as more and more immigrants enter the country, as it has in Australia. I would oftentimes hear, “When Australia used to be Australia,…”
The issue is not paying for health insurance, the issue is paying MORE than other residents just because of where you come from.
The actual previous estimate of the cost of health tourism varies from 12 million and 200 million, after the report was produced they still don’t have an accurate estimate! As I also mentioned, there are other knock-on effects that haven’t been considered, should other countries ‘get tough’ on British access to their national health services, and what about missing coverage of the population in terms of epidemics and vaccinations and mental health diagnosis?
A fairer system,simpler and more cost effective method of implementation is simply to use a blanket term of residence before you can pay in and avail of the system using a national health card like in Taiwan.
These policies are not so much about saving money, but SHOWING the voter base they are getting ‘tough on those foreign spongers’, no matter that there is no evidence that this is actually the case, especially if one actually reads this report! It’s all about stopping the UKIP stealing the Tory votes.
These (made-up numbers which vary by a factor of 10) are actually small fry compared to the NHS budget, which in England alone is 100 billion GBP per year.
So why the focus? People easily buy into the headlines nodding their heads because ‘it seems to make sense’ and ‘is fair’ but it doesn’t make sense at all nor is fair when you look into the details.
Wait a minute, this doesn’t make sense to me…how would it cost them more? Citizens pay taxes into the system and this is their NHS contribution. A visitor is not paying taxes to contribute toward this system. Actually, £200 a year is significantly LESS than taxpayers will pay for the NHS!
I have to respectfully disagree with you on this issue, HH. I don’t think that just anyone who sets foot on British soil should have free access to medical care if they haven’t contributed to it.
Speaking of reciprocity, the UK has an agreement with Australia, but even my husband (a British citizen) was made to pay for health insurance during the year we studied there because he was a student. Also, I believe that some EU countries are changing their laws. I heard recently that Italy has already started (or will start soon) making citizens from other EU countries contribute toward medical care for a certain number of years if they settle there.
The problem is not with visitors paying…but they actually do unless it’s emergency care…for instance hospital care is not covered by the NHS for foreign visitors unless they have reciprocal agreements.
If one reads the report, the problem is more with the NHS not following up in getting the monies from foreign health systems! However, both before and after the report was published, the ‘health tourism problem’ remains completely unquantified, as is admitted in the report if one reads it!
Also how much does the average foreign student pay in terms of their fee and also their contribution to the local economy in the UK, it’s massive. In 2011, foreign students contributed 6.3 billion GBP in living costs and 3.9 billion GBP in fees! Messing with that is not something that should be done lightly…
Mainly the problem I have with this is that it asks residents from non-EU countries and residents with less than permanent residency to pay more than other citizens, it does not mention anything about if you are paying tax or not . It’s all based on unsubstantiated ‘talking points’ designed to get votes from people upset with ‘foreigners’.
As you would know, many citizens of countries don’t actually pay any tax or are not net contributors to government revenue.
Australia has always had a vicious streak of racism that sits just under the surface, despite Australia generally being a country where migrants assimilate within a generation and multiculturalism is quite successful. I remember my grandfather (who was Scottish) telling me about it when he migrated to Australia as a teenager in the 1920’s. With every successive wave of migration (European post WW2, Asian post-Vietnam War, Middle Eastern from the 80’s) it’s been the same with the majority easily assimilating into Australian culture. And yet this racism still persists.
I think the specific topic of foreigners paying for health care in the UK has been addressed, but regarding the broader topic of xenophobia in the West, I don’t think the phenomenon should be immediately dismissed as mindless racism. Many Westerners are understandably worried about large influxes of immigrants from nations with significantly different cultures. It’s true that some of those complaining are far right racial purists, but there are plenty of ordinary, generally tolerant citizens expressing concerns. Among them are feminists in France and the Netherlands who have raised alarms about setbacks in their efforts to achieve female equality. It’s a visually striking difference, to see highly educated European women in business suits walking confidently down the street to their corporate jobs, juxtaposed against Muslim immigrants in full burkas. That’s just one example of the cultural barriers than can make additional waves of immigration less welcome.
I like this because the Korean women WOULD really be upset if she was called anything but Korean (aka the master race).
Do Irish people really get upset about those things? The police van is still called the ‘Paddy wagon’ and no one seems to mind. Imagine if it had a nickname disparaging some other culture?
