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Health Tourism Costs More Than £62 Million!

September 3rd, 2007 by ThunderDragon

How much?!

A confidential internal report on health tourism estimates that the bill for treating foreign patients amounts to at least £62 million a year, The Times has learnt.
The figure is “bound to be an underestimate” since new rules intended to prevent the abuse of the NHS by foreign patients are being ignored, according to the report.
A survey has found that NHS managers are failing to ensure patients are asked to prove their eligibility and are chasing only around half of the debts owed. The findings suggest that taxpayers are picking up hospital bills for foreign patients that come to more than £30 million a year. Some of the £62 million is paid back by the patients. (The Times)

A minimum of £62million on health tourism?! Why are we funding people who don’t even live here to have healthcare? We may have a free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare system, but that is no excuse for allowing it to be abused. Free emergency care is fine, but £62 million goes way beyond that.

When the NHS is as skint as it is at the moment, despite the amount of money that has been pumped into it, we shouldn’t be making it so easy for it to be basically ripped off. Ben Wallace, the Conservative MP who uncovered the report, said:

This Government is conniving at a ‘Don’t ask, don’t charge and don’t chase’ policy that is leaving the NHS wide open to abuse.

They are, and it is. And it is costing us millions that could - and should - be put to better use.

Source: The Times

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