Okay, Marc. Let's go through this sentence by sentence.
And the completely insane idea of wrestlemania to provide free health care to the world suggests he either doesn't pay tax or doesn't manage his own money?
No. Wrestlemania said that he would like us to continue paying for whatever medical treatment we currently provide free for foreign visitors. This is not 'free health care to the world', it is ensuring that people who are in our country are given medical treatment if they are in an emergency situation.
Tax is for the country, no one stops charity's operating or you from providing your infinite funds to the world for free health care.
See above. This is clearly not about infinite funds. It is about the £70mn (a
*tiny* fraction of the NHS budget) that goes towards necessary medical treatment, a.k.a. what you get in an
emergency.
Crab makes the assertion that people want HIV sufferers to die in the streets, instead of calling people a cunt, back that shit up. QUOTE it (I mean real quotes, not made up ones).
If you are not willing to pay for the HIV treatment of people who are in this country, and cannot pay for it themselves, you are de facto willing to let them die on the streets. The latter is a necessary consequence of the former.
You know what I heard and heard from others, they talked about travel insurance... something I use when I go to another country strangely enough.
Yes. And we use travel insurance in this country for foreigners for the vast amount of medical procedures we provide to said foreigners. That's why we make a profit off providing medical aid to foreigners, as I pointed out earlier. I think it is unlikely that anyone in this thread will defend not making use of charging for non-necessary treatment.
That's not the issue here. The issue is that some people will sometimes not have travel insurance, for whatever reason - they relied on the EIHC, they bought a relatively cheap policy because they're not particularly well off, who knows. You are proposing a policy whereby the first thing we do, on identifying that one of these people is having a medical emergency, is say "shit, nope, no travel insurance, your embolism just kinda sucks pal".
This is barbaric and I want you to provide a proper defense of what is allowing people to suffer in such a way.
And I reckon the same people calling others cunts are doing the same unless you're a complete idiot and want to run up a bill of hundreds of thousands in say America. Even the EU has its own form of insurance (that you can apply for btw in case you aren't aware, often people aren't).
The issue is not "hey, we're leftwing and we don't want anyone to use travel insurance ever, hoorah!". Don't be so fucking inane. Of course we find it preferable when people have travel insurance that meets the cost of treatment. However, this will not always be the case. It is almost certainly impossible to make sure that it is the case. Some people will be uninsured. These people still need treatment.
For what it's worth, incidentally, if you are travelling abroad, I'd suggest not relying on the EIHC; it doesn't provide a particularly full cover.
You literally quote Farage as saying let them die, Crab also says "I agree with Farage, let those foreigners die on the streets". Oh no wait, that is a strawman and outright lying. The sentiment was poor, the idea of supply and demand and fixing one side of that is not. It is logical and an easy win to require people to travel here with insurance.
Travel insurance is not something magical thing where once you have it, everything is suddenly great and fine in the world. There are different degrees of travel insurance. Some have strong coverage. Some have weak coverage. Even if you made it mandatory to require travel insurance to enter the United Kingdom, which I think would come under strong legal challenge from the European Union, it is inevitable that there will be cases when travel insurance does not provide sufficient coverage to solve the issue at hand. What do you propose to do about these people?
Can even set up a zero profit insurance company that people who failed to get insurance before the plane and on entry can purchase at cost. Hell, could even make it a form of oyster card for frequent visitors with discounts on zero claims. Travel insurance is not some anti-HIV sufferer conspiracy ffs. Why Farage felt the need to be specific in that case, I have no clue, maybe easy to grab cost data... but he clearly didn't say anything like let them die. It didn't help the stigma and deserves criticism on that basis, not the complete lies being spewed.
Your first suggestion would be immensely more harmful for the United Kingdom than whatever small benefits it might reap. A very large amount of people enter the United Kingdom on a fairly regular basis to be tourists, visit family, see friends, look for employment opportunities, and a vast amount of other things. Whilst in this country, they spend their money. That is a net benefit for us; a large one. The UK tourism industry represents £127bn a year.
Now, you drive up the cost of entering the country. Probably by quite a large amount, because you seem to want the travel insurance to offer very strong coverage. This will deter a fair amount of people from entering. Let's be really optimistic about this, and say it turns away one person in a hundred. The UK tourism industry just lost £1.27bn overnight. That exceeds the cost of providing care for foreigners by £1.2bn. Great fucking policy there, lad.
Also Crab, read your own cited article. Foreign visits account for 70 million a year, the 0.06% figure you quote but then in the same paragraph you fail to quote the total figure of 2 billion for short term visitors. Or 1.7% I think?
No, that £2bn is not for health tourists. Let me quote from the article directly:
The Daily Mail was first out of the blocks with an alarmist front page declaring that the true cost of "health tourism" has been revealed to be £2bn, 100 times more than previously thought (a far from unhelpful story for the government). But study the report itself and it becomes clear that the figure is bogus. Those who travel to the UK specifically for healthcare, such as women who give birth in an NHS hospital before returning home, are actually estimated to cost the service just £70m a year (0.06% of the budget). The £2bn figure refers to the total cost of treating foreign visitors and temporary migrants (such as students and seasonal workers), many of whom are eligible for free treatment and pay tax, not "health tourists".
The majority of this group of people are either employed, or students. They're not health tourists. The first group contributes tax to the economy; on average, more than British people do. They certainly do pay more than British people do. Even if they're not here long, that also implies they're less likely to need these services to begin with. If they a) pay more tax in a given year than British people do, on average (true), and b) are less likely to use health services in a given year than British people do, on average (true), they are net contributors.
If they're not entitled to the sweat of their brow, then none of us are. The second group are part of an absolutely vital group. The fact that the United Kingdom takes in and educates people from all over the world gives us immense cultural capital. Neither of these groups are in any way losing us money. To call that £2bn a 'cost' is like saying that you got a shit deal when you paid £2 for that piece of solid diamond, because hey, it cost £2, right?
They 'may' pay tax but not long at all and will not cover their expenses for any real hospital time.
As a group they do.
As they tend to be short term migrant workers or students, their national insurance contributions would be on the lower end.
See above.
So basically you lied again. Why?
No, you're just too incompetent to understand the meanings of the words you throw around. £70mn goes on people who are actually here for health tourism. That's what Farage was arguing against. If you are here primarily for work, you are NOT a health tourist. That is not what the definition of health tourist is. You are simply an employee here to do work, who happens to have become ill. You almost certainly did not intend it, particularly given, and I need to stress this again, we are talking about *emergency* care. They're not coming here to get a fucking boob job and teeth whitening, we're talking about medical necessities.
