Yes it is pitifully small, 5 million goes unpaid, the NHS budget is over 100 billion therefore this scandalous non payment by the eveel foreign types bent on overthrowing all that is right and decent about the Earthly paradise that is GREAT Britain is… erm, 0.005% (at most) of the budget. So yes this is electioneering of the lowest demagogic and xenophobic order.
PS. White working class, hippies and liberal elites etc. I suppose you are being funny but it just seems to be repeating false assumptions & stereotypes for not much comedic capital, or a ‘Carr’ as its known.

Everyone’s a critic, though it’s not really my issue if you can’t take some humour from the segmentation and stereotypification of our society.

Ooh, linguistic gymnastics there. Stereotyping would have sufficed….

Health tourism? I’d rather go to Cuba.

Actually, I think ‘stereotypification’ won me over!

Why use a real word when a made up/unofficial one suffices?

Seriously though, it’s been announced now that Tories are sticking with their “vote for change” mantra as a slogan. It’s ridiculous that a party can even claim to be for change when they can’t even change how they tackle policy opposition.

“allowing those desperate enough to get good healthcare using our country’s system.”

I can’t beleive I’m reading this. Even if we didn’t have a national debt worse than Greece, it is a gross abuse of a public service to allow people who have no entitlement to use the NHS. If you are so concerned about them why don’t you pay for it yourself ?

I’m fed up of lefties saying things like “it’s a pitifully small amount”. Lot’s of “pitifully small amounts” add up to a massive public finances problem. It doesn’t matter whether its 1p £1M or £1BN, it’s public money, that could be spend on something else (like someone else waiting for NHS care).

Would you be ok if MPs only fiddled their expense by a “pitifully small amount” ?

why this story is another example of why the Tories lead is likely to be slipping.

This may be an example of poor Tory politics, but I’m a great big politics geek and I’d never heard of this. It seems the far side of unlikely that it’s moving the polls significantly.

If I were to try and attribute one emotion to the kind of statement made by Green (other than deceitful in parts) I’d attribute to it jealousy.

Since everyone else is being syntax pedants, I’m going to point out that you can’t be jealous of somebody else. Jealousy is the fear of losing something you already have – as in guarding something jealously, or being a jealous lover. If you want something that someone else has it’s called envy.

[7] the NHS (in clinical areas) has never encumbered itself an administrative processes that would very rapidly eat up £5 million once we start questioning entitlement to this or that treatment.

The present system is actually reasonably fair and cost effective – which bit of this would you change? (see summary below)
Remember, even Obama’s Mum was citing her life saving treatment by the NHS as an example to the hugely expensive and iniquitous American health system;
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/454493/Obamarsquos-mum-I-was-saved-by-Brit-hospital.html

Anyway, from the source highlighted in Lee’s post it says;
“The (UK) Government have decided to maintain the current system of charging non-residents for MOST secondary care (hospital) services. Treatment in an accident and emergency department, and treatment for specified infectious diseases that could create a public health risk, will remain free to all. The Government also propose limited extensions to the current range of exemptions from charges for hospital treatment for certain non-residents.

Persons seeking refuge or asylum are already exempted from charges for the duration of their application including the full appeal process. The Government have not been persuaded that this full exemption should be extended to all of those whose application has failed but have not yet left the country. It has however recognised the case for those whose claim has been refused but who are being supported by the UK Border Agency because they would otherwise be destitute, have children and or because it is impossible to return them home through no fault of their own. It is therefore proposed that an exemption from charges is extended to this group.

The Government also propose to exempt from charges all unaccompanied minors, including those in local authority care, while clarifying the principle that the accompanying parent or guardian of a non-resident minor is responsible for the cost of their NHS treatment. Together with the exemption for victims of human trafficking that was introduced from April this year, these changes reinforce the protection and rights to health care of the most vulnerable groups, regardless of their residential status.

While maintaining the principle that other visitors or irregular migrants who are not specifically exempted should be charged for their treatment, and that, in non-urgent circumstances, treatment will be withheld if the costs are not paid, the Government remain firmly committed to the requirement that immediately necessary and other urgent treatment should never be denied or delayed from those that require it. We are currently engaging with key stakeholders to ensure that guidance to the NHS in this respect is clear and comprehensive”.

Why change a reasonably humane and cost effetcive formula?

@6

Vote for Change = Spare change, Gov’nor?

7. “I’m fed up of lefties saying things like “it’s a pitifully small amount”. Lot’s of “pitifully small amounts” add up to a massive public finances problem. It doesn’t matter whether its 1p £1M or £1BN, it’s public money, that could be spend on something else (like someone else waiting for NHS care).”

£5m a year is “pitifully small” because (as A&E Nurse alludes to) it is likely less than the cost of making the system more “secure” across the nation. It’s one reason why I think the policy is stupid.

But it’s going to be a fundamental difference we have here I feel; if you believe in giving an aid budget to a needy world then adding the effect of a £5m underwriting of costs by the NHS (when around £120m is brought in by non-UK patients, no idea if this subsidises us or not to even the smallest degree however) is nothing. If people can’t get adequate healthcare and want to make the journey to us then I believe it’s the same kind of compassion for us to treat them as it is to provide funding for fighting poverty and disease in their own country.

If you don’t agree with giving aid then I understand why you have a problem with some people not paying (at least not immediately, people do tend to pay it back more than not at some point) for treatment they receive that they couldn’t get in their own country. I disagree with you on all account but at least I understand your viewpoint.

However, if you agree with giving aid but not this insignificant amount of “aid” spending in our own country then you’re just splitting hairs and unable to withdraw yourself from a very narrow point of view.

8. I’m not saying that specifically the way they counter policies is hurting them, I’m saying it’s he fact that all they do. The lack of policy direction means the Tories are coming across like they don’t actually have an argument. On one hand it looks like a sense of arrogant entitlement, on the other it looks like incompetence. Neither put the Tories in a good light, during a time that really they should have having the easiest time of looking good.

Also I take your advice on board, envy may fit better holistically, but subjectively they are potentially losing votes on the subject (or the share of looking like the party that can deal with the “problem”) so I’m going to stick with Jealousy.

9. Great comment, thanks.

Utter rubbish Mr Griffin. Foreign development aid aims at helping poor countries assemble the kind of systems (such as health care) that will eventually become self sustaining – it is not meant to be a permanent subsidy given in perpetuity. The idea that the citizens of this country have to support the entire population of the earth is utterly crazy.

@12

Ha ha ha!

You can have this aid as long as you spend it on these things we’ve made for you…

…as long as you let privatise your utilities and let our multinationals bid against your little utility companies…

…as long as you sign this arms deal…

What planet are you on?

12. Yet until those systems do become self sustaining (and indeed socialist in their function, such as the NHS) spending a relatively tiny £5m on healthcare for a few is more efficient use of money per annum than sending that £5m abroad in terms of global “good”.

Some of us want to help people globally, others like you would rather what? Help people as long as you relate to them? As long as you recognise them as geographically bound by your countries borders? Some of us aren’t that fickle.

And more examples of the Tories giving so little away… http://www.edballs.co.uk/index.jsp?i=4733&s=1111

When will they understand that trying to give Labour enough rope to hang themselves isn’t working?