Stopping free health tourism is racist and complicit in an oppressive regime say British doctors.

[Aexodus]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/m...tors-7qswlhbsd

Doctors have voted overwhelmingly to stop charging foreign patients for NHS care, claiming that doing so is “fundamentally racist”.

Up to 500 delegates at the British Medical Association’s annual conference in Belfast backed a motion that said that asking overseas visitors to pay made medical staff “complicit” in racism.

“We are doctors not border guards,” Omar Risk said during the debate. “Charging migrants for accessing NHS services is a fundamentally racist endeavour — we are complicit in the oppressive regime.”

Doctors who opposed the motion were booed as they spoke against it on Monday, according to the Daily Mail.

The BMA will begin lobbying the Department of Health to overhaul the rules.

Well this is... startling. I have no idea why doctors would think this. They’re meant to be intelligent people.

If I go to America and I have to get health insurance, then why shouldn’t Americans living here not have to pay for using the NHS? These doctors are living in a bizarro world.

Does anyone on this forum even think that foreigners getting free healthcare is a good idea? Like, this is a very short OP but I don’t have anything more to add besides my bewilderment.

[conon394]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/m...tors-7qswlhbsd


Well this is... startling. I have no idea why doctors would think this. They’re meant to be intelligent people.

If I go to America and I have to get health insurance, then why shouldn’t Americans living here not have to pay for using the NHS? These doctors are living in a bizarro world.

Does anyone on this forum even think that foreigners getting free healthcare is a good idea? Like, this is a very short OP but I don’t have anything more to add besides my bewilderment.

Not quite sure Americans are the best example. As as far as I know as an expat with working rights I would pay UK taxes and US taxes so should have access to the NHS. As a tourist I have pages of and pages of insurance documents that tell me what to expect to charged in the UK or EU or elsewhere and what my caps and limits are. That is the expectation my insurance will get a bill.

[That might not be normal my wife provides the insurance as an official of the US government so maybe most people have plans that don't tell them about overseas travel I'm pretty sure most policies don't tell you demand to be stabilized and wait for relocation to the the US or a military hospital.]

[Aexodus]

It’s for British Citizens end of. However what these doctors want is for you to get free coverage whether you’re working here or just on holiday.

[Alastor]

It’s for British Citizens end of.

Just citizens? Not residents? It is speaking of migrants as far as I can see. And people contributing to the NHS via taxation should be entitled to its services at the very least.

And you know ideologically speaking I don't see how free healthcare for everyone is a bad thing. If indeed the UK's NHS can afford sth like that, then it's praiseworthy and sth to be imitated. I'll never forget the relief I felt many years ago back in my country when my foreign girlfriend needed urgent medical help and she wasn't charged for it, not only that, proud also, I was bragging about it for years. A shame it's apparently no longer the case.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Hospital treatment is free to people classed as ordinarily resident in the UK. This is not dependent on nationality, payment of UK taxes, National Insurance contributions, being registered with a GP , having an NHS Number, or owning property in the UK.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-enti...t-health-guide

Its not dependent on citizenship, only on ordinarily residence in UK.

[conon394]

It’s for British Citizens end of. However what these doctors want is for you to get free coverage whether you’re working here or just on holiday.

But as American tourist as I said I would expect the NHS to charge my insurance, although I would of course be paying if nothing else VAT. As a legal resident even an American I would be paying all UK taxes. I am not quite sure I see the outrage. I not going to bother to get beyond the paywall so it seems this issue is more to do with asylum seekers and migrants who do not have some kind of insurance back home. I NHS must charge the French health care system for treating a French citizen correct?

[Pontifex Maximus]

Sadly the US is soon to follow if the pitiful Democrap debates allow us any preview into the 2020 debate. According to the front runners of the democrats of 2020, including the delusional socialists, the hair sniffers, and the fake native americans, we should expect, as Americans, to shoulder the burden of free healthcare to those who break our laws by crossing the border illegally, working in this nation illegally, claiming benefits illegally, and if you dare speak up against this arrangement you are obviously just a racist xenophobe. Why is this arrangement so important? Well, as democrats agitate to ensure that nobody has to actually show ID and prove they are citizens to vote in federal elections, the rest of us are struggling to calculate our taxes for next year which will increase as even Bernie moron Sanders says they will in order to provide for these moronic policies. But do we feel better now? If I pay double my taxes in order to provide some illegal immigrant healthcare, am I somehow gauranteed a position in heaven? Maybe General Secretary Sanders can confirm this?

The Democrat machine is pandering and relying on blacks and hispanics and illegal immigrants to win elections. Even if they are elected NOTHING will change for those groups. It is all a fraud. Your precious policies must necessarily fail in the fail of even the most basic economic and immigration considerations. Virtue signal to your hearts content.

[Aexodus]

But as American tourist as I said I would expect the NHS to charge my insurance, although I would of course be paying if nothing else VAT. As a legal resident even an American I would be paying all UK taxes. I am not quite sure I see the outrage. I not going to bother to get beyond the paywall so it seems this issue is more to do with asylum seekers and migrants who do not have some kind of insurance back home. I NHS must charge the French health care system for treating a French citizen correct?

No Conon, the doctors are saying if you come here on holiday, as in you yourself, with or without insurance, they will treat you totally free because otherwise they are racist.

[alhoon]

Let's try to keep this debate on topic, which doesn't include the USA democrat party primaries but health tourism and what BMA said about it. So far, no posts have been deleted but don't let the discussion stray more.

[Exarch]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/m...tors-7qswlhbsd


Well this is... startling. I have no idea why doctors would think this. They’re meant to be intelligent people.

If I go to America and I have to get health insurance, then why shouldn’t Americans living here not have to pay for using the NHS? These doctors are living in a bizarro world.

Does anyone on this forum even think that foreigners getting free healthcare is a good idea? Like, this is a very short OP but I don’t have anything more to add besides my bewilderment.

Because British doctors get paid by how many patients they see, never mind the cost to the NHS.

This is not a dig at the NHS per se, but of course there will be a profit motive from british doctors who, after having slaved away for at least 7 years in college, are looking to buy coke and prostitutes with their hard earned money.

[Cope]

Because British doctors get paid by how many patients they see, never mind the cost to the NHS.

This is not a dig at the NHS per se, but of course there will be a profit motive from british doctors who, after having slaved away for at least 7 years in college, are looking to buy coke and prostitutes with their hard earned money.

NHS budgeting is contingent upon the expected number of patients. The extra costs the NHS will incur by increasing its pool of patients will inevitably be shouldered, at least in part, by its staff. They will experience reduced salary growth, departmental manpower shortages or both. Either way, your analysis that they were motivated to pass this motion by personal profiteering is almost certainly wrong wrong.

[95thrifleman]

Why should people who do not pay national insurance contributions get free access to the NHS?

[Alwyn]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/m...tors-7qswlhbsd

Well this is... startling. I have no idea why doctors would think this. They’re meant to be intelligent people.

If I go to America and I have to get health insurance, then why shouldn’t Americans living here not have to pay for using the NHS? These doctors are living in a bizarro world.

Does anyone on this forum even think that foreigners getting free healthcare is a good idea? Like, this is a very short OP but I don’t have anything more to add besides my bewilderment.

The heading of the Times article talks about "tourists", however the person they quote in the debate talked about "migrants":

“We are doctors not border guards,” Omar Risk said during the debate. “Charging migrants for accessing NHS services is a fundamentally racist endeavour — we are complicit in the oppressive regime.”

I can see how you'd be bewildered by this. Not treating "tourists" for free doesn't sound like an "oppressive regime". However, the speaker was talking about migrants, not tourists. What could possibly cause doctors to think that there is an "oppressive regime" which affects "migrants"?

Imagine that you work in an NHS hospital. You're about to have 'the talk' with a grieving family. You've had this talk before, you know how it goes. You'll say how sorry you are. You'll tell them you can see how much they loved the family member they've lost. Normally, you'd assure them that you did everything you could - except this time, you won't say that. Your hospital didn't treat their family member because he or she didn't have papers to prove their status and the family didn't have the tens of thousands of pounds needed to pay for the treatment. We might look in disbelief at the claim that charging migrants is racist, we might feel that the accusation of racism is used too often and too broadly. Even so, if you noticed that you could say all the things you usually say in 'the talk' with grieving families who were white, and that you were having different conversation with some grieving families who were black, you might wonder what was going on.

If this was a tourist, we might wonder why they didn't pay for travel insurance with medical cover. But this wasn't a tourist, this family member came to live in the UK decades ago, worked here and raised their chldren here. We might wonder why the family didn't save up the money needed. This family member paid taxes for decades and everyone in the UK knows that we pay for NHS treatment through our taxes - yet, when he or she needed the NHS, it wasn't there.

Suppose you found out that this migrant was a British citizen from the Caribbean, who came to help rebuild a Britain which was broken by the Second World War. He or she should have been treated, but was turned away. What if you talked to other NHS staff and found that, across the country, people were turned away from medical care they needed and were entitled to have. They were turned away because they couldn't prove that they were lawfully in the UK. Some of them couldn't prove this because the Home Office destroyed the documents.

What would you say to the families of migrants who didn't survive, and those who suffered with untreated illness or injury and who survived? Would 'sorry' be enough? Would you want to do more? Maybe this helps you to see the thinking which led some NHS staff to want to say to the government that 'enough is enough', they're NHS staff not border guards and they don't want to turn people away who need treatment anymore, because they're the ones who have 'the talk' and they've seen what the government's policies have led to.

[mongrel]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/m...tors-7qswlhbsd


Well this is... startling. I have no idea why doctors would think this. They’re meant to be intelligent people.

If I go to America and I have to get health insurance, then why shouldn’t Americans living here not have to pay for using the NHS? These doctors are living in a bizarro world.

Does anyone on this forum even think that foreigners getting free healthcare is a good idea? Like, this is a very short OP but I don’t have anything more to add besides my bewilderment.

It's straightforward. The policy under the 2014 legislation is not done for fiscal reasons, health reasons or indeed to target genuine 'health tourists' who would be foreigners who would have travel documents etc. The law places a duty on NHS organisations to check patients are UK residents and charge upfront. The criteria they use discriminate against people who do not have valid passports or certificates of naturalisation. Commonwealth migrants who entered the country before 1962 (who in law entered the country as British citizens until the 1962 Act was passed) had no need id papers other than a (British) passport for the initial passage. What records these people had of their entry were destroyed by the Government, for cost reasons.

As you well know the law is very much discriminatory. A white EU migrant can get treatment under many circumstances under EU treaty. They are not given the derogatory term 'health tourists'. A 60 year old white Englishman , if they are questioned at all, can readily get a registry office to produce a birth certificate. A black Briton whoever , even if it is damned obvious they are Windrush types were asked to provide pay slips and rent/mortgage details covering all years 4 decades or more, even though by law they were considered British and paid taxes over 40-50 years. Not only were they denied treatment, there was a duty to inform the Home Office. The effect was that older Black Britons could not use health services without risk of deportatation and exile. If that isn't racist, I don't know what is.

Slyester Marshall is one such victim, denied vital cancer treatment, rendered homeless and threatened with deportation. His only crime being the wrong shade.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...atus-confirmed


I hope the BMA get their way. A proper policy should be confined to fiscal probity, that is charging only people who are not covered by treaty obligation,to the extent it is cost-effective.


For the curious, although Theresa May and Amber Rudd is taking the flak for this, the concept of imposing racially discriminatory migration rules against 'coloured' migration whilst favouring unlimited frictionless movement of white people started with Clement Atlee, Winston Churchill and Harold MacMillan, with subsequent governments tightening the screws. The hostile environment broke the system and has exposed a hypocritical migration policy.

Why should people who do not pay national insurance contributions get free access to the NHS?

Wrong question. Pensioners do not pay national insurance contributions. Do we deny them treatment? The relevant question is
'Why should people who pay national insurance contributions be denied free access to the NHS, just because the Government, for no lawful reason, has decided they aren't British anymore?' Yes, that what it has come to.

[mongrel]

I seem to have killed the thread. Let me kick the corpse.


The only thing I would have to say to those doctors is that they might not be aware of the context of current policy. It is entirely consistent with the way governments have behaved since 1948.

We have has a load of crap on this forum about how 'the left' introduced brown people in the UK out of 'political correctness' or how the EU brought brought them in to wipe out white people or impose sharia and how soft the government is on such people and how they get special favours because of so-called 'political correctness'.

Here are the facts, from (formerly) secret released Cabinet papers from the National Archives. It is clear from reading them that it was official policy, both Labour and Tory to discriminate against black Commonwealth migrants, even in the days when they were British in the eyes of the law, since 1948. Successive governments concealed the policy from the general public, with the sole exception of Winston Churchill who tried to,but was dissuaded against, being more transparent by proposing a 'keep Britain white' policy.


http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/c...g%20population

If anyone posts a Eurabia/white genocide/Generation Identity style spam post again, call them out and point them to this link.

[Pontifex Maximus]

I've got some questions.

If I show up in London needing HIV treatment what obstacles will I face? What if I need Diabetic treatment. What if I need cancer screening? I'm just on my way to Italy for vacation but what amenities from the NHS can I count on for free to get some care before I move on? I'd love to spend a few hours being screeneed for free while I'm in Europe, since healthcare is a human right, before I leave and pay nothing in tax or healthcare. Seems like a great plan for me.

[mongrel]

I've got some questions.

If I show up in London needing HIV treatment what obstacles will I face? What if I need Diabetic treatment. What if I need cancer screening? I'm just on my way to Italy for vacation but what amenities from the NHS can I count on for free to get some care before I move on? I'd love to spend a few hours being screeneed for free while I'm in Europe, since healthcare is a human right, before I leave and pay nothing in tax or healthcare. Seems like a great plan for me.

Someone has already posted the requirements. Read what it damn well says. Of course if you were dishonest, and declared yourself to be someone who did not need to pay, that would be fraud would it not? So your obstacles would be a counter-fraud unit and the police. I trust that answers your questions in full.

I don't think doctors are concerned about armchair patients fantasing about ripping us off. The issue that real people are being denied or deterred from treatment they are entitled to because the Government arbitrarily decided that they were no longer British unless they provided decades worth of pay slips, rent bills and other non-existent documents. (Tax records don't count apparently). Or they are simply making up new rules so as to meet targets.


Here is one prime example. Now if your accountant made a mistake in your tax return, you spot it and tell your Revenue Service and pay the difference you wouldn't expect a big 'thank you' from the Government , but you would have the sense that you had done the right thing.

Not under May's policies. This man Raja paid £1,200 he owed HMRC within 24 hours of being alerted to his accountant's mistake. HMRC accepted the amendment without charging him penalties or interest, he did so lawfully with a year minus one day to spare. The Home Office however, said 'it was proof that his character is “a threat to national security” under section 322(5). He was forced to quit a good job as he is no allowed to work,or run a business, His family is no longer entitled to NHS treatment. He and his apparently very sick family face deportation. So rather than entertain us with your imaginings, just give the real victims of May's policies some thought.

[conon394]

@Mongrel

So if may you are arguing that essentially Churchill was honest. On the second part the succeeding governments welcomed immigration but quietly maintained a second class citizenship?

Not under May's policies. This man Raja paid £1,200 he owed HMRC within 24 hours of being alerted to his accountant's mistake. HMRC accepted the amendment without charging him penalties or interest, he did so lawfully with a year minus one day to spare. The Home Office however, said 'it was proof that his character is “a threat to national security” under section 322(5). He was forced to quit a good job as he is no allowed to work,or run a business, His family is no longer entitled to NHS treatment. He and his apparently very sick family face deportation. So rather than entertain us with your imaginings, just give the real victims of May's policies some thought.

Interesting. As an American why was his tax issue shared with the rest of the government or allowed impact his health care? As a result of a name change error for my wife, Her father's somewhat lackadaisical tax filings (tied up with inheritance) and bad rural mail - I have been wrapped up in tax issues for years. But as long as I stay in touch and am working with them to resolve issues (ie not going to court) nothing is ever handed over to the any other part of the government or anyone else. I have had more grief from a credit ding for forgetting to turn in a cable box when moving. That kind of story would probably see half of the right wing militias in the US show up outside the IRS building in DC if was here.

[Yayattasa]

It’s for British Citizens end of. However what these doctors want is for you to get free coverage whether you’re working here or just on holiday.

Even if said migrants (that could just as well be relatives of residents/citizens) pay taxes???

[Heathen Hammer]

Here in Canada, this is a huge problem, as our public healthcare system is rather over-burdened by both the welfare migrants and the "altruism" of our government which is keen to give anyone access, especially trudeau's "friends" from theocracies in the Gulf, which apparently receive preferential treatment.