There should be no immigration health surcharge. People who are working here are paying taxes here. And in any case:
One of the consequences of the universality of the British Health Service is the free treatment of foreign visitors. This has given rise to a great deal of criticism, most of it ill-informed and some of it deliberately mischievous. Why should people come to Britain and enjoy the benefits of the free Health Service when they do not subscribe to the national revenues? So the argument goes.
One of the consequences of the universality of the British Health Service is the free treatment of foreign visitors. This has given rise to a great deal of criticism, most of it ill-informed and some of it deliberately mischievous. Why should people come to Britain and enjoy the benefits of the free Health Service when they do not subscribe to the national revenues? So the argument goes.
No doubt a little of this objection is still based on the confusion about contributions to which I have referred. The fact is, of course, that visitors to Britain subscribe to the national revenues as soon as they start consuming certain commodities, drink and tobacco for example, and entertainment. They make no direct contribution to the cost of the Health Service any more than does a British citizen.
However, there are a number of more potent reasons why it would be unwise as well as mean to withhold the free service from the visitor to Britain. How do we distinguish a visitor from anybody else? Are British citizens to carry means of identification everywhere to prove that they are not visitors? For if the sheep are to be separated from the goats both must be classified. What began as an attempt to keep the Health Service for ourselves would end by being a nuisance to everybody.
Happily, this is one of those occasions when generosity and convenience march together. The cost of looking after the visitor who falls ill cannot amount to more than a negligible fraction of £399,000,000, the total cost of the Health Service. It is not difficult to arrive at an approximate estimate.
All we have to do is look up the number of visitors to Great Britain during one year and assume they would make the same use of the Health Service as a similar number of Britishers. Divide the total cost of the Service by the population and you get the answer. I had the estimate taken out and it amounted to about £200,000 a year. Obviously this is an overestimate because people who go for holidays are not likely to need a doctor’s attention as much as others. However, there it is, for what it is worth, and you will see it does not justify the fuss that has been made about it.
The whole agitation has a nasty taste. Instead of rejoicing at the opportunity to practice a civilized principle, Conservatives have tried to exploit the most disreputable emotions in this among many other attempts to discredit socialized medicine.
Naturally when Britons go abroad they are incensed because they are not similarly treated if they need the attention of a doctor. But that also I am convinced will come when other nations follow our example and have health services of their own. When that happens we shall be able to work out schemes of reciprocity, and yet one more amenity will have been added to social intercourse. In the meantime let us keep in mind that, here, example is better than precept.
With my emphasis added, Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear: A Free Health Service, 1952.
What an irony that the Left is undermining the principle of the NHS through mass immigration, just as David Goodhart argued the Left's belief in diversity undermined public support for the welfare state.
ReplyDelete"How do we distinguish a visitor from anybody else? Are British citizens to carry means of identification everywhere to prove that they are not visitors? For if the sheep are to be separated from the goats both must be classified. What began as an attempt to keep the Health Service for ourselves would end by being a nuisance to everybody."
This is why mass immigration destroys the liberties of us all. You can only distinguish between citizen and non-citizen at the border. Once immigrants are allowed to move here in large numbers, then all of us must carry identification not only to prevent mass "health tourism" but to stop many other abuses from illegal employment to housing fraud.
Once we no longer know and trust our fellow citizens, we must all be classified.
I stopped reading after that absurd first sentence. Britain is now the most diverse place on Earth, and there is no sign of any such undermining. The people who do not support either, never did. But there are not very many of them. Reform UK averages six per cent in the few wards where it can find 10 people to sign its nomination papers, and every other such faction has negligible support even compared to that.
Delete"absurd first sentence." Unbelievable. You haven't read or understood David Goodhart's central argument of the past 15 years-that the welfare state is based on solidarity and solidarity is based on familiarity. Put simply, people are more willing to share resources with those with whom they share a common language, culture and heritage. As Goodhart's books record, the research shows the most culturally and ethnically homogenous countries and regions exhibit the highest support for social institutions such as welfare and the most diverse have the lowest levels of trust, social capital and support for welfare.
ReplyDeleteThe latest YouGov poll shows that 68% of British people want immigration reduced, only 8% want more immigration. That was the biggest reason for the Brexit vote.
I have known David for years. I doubt that you have ever met him.
DeleteBritain is now the most diverse place on Earth. When is the erosion of support for the Welfare State going to start?
Whether you know him or not, if you thought the first sentence was absurd, you have quite clearly never read or begun to understand anything he's written. For the "progressive dilemma" of "Diversity vs solidarity" encapsulated in my first sentence is his flagship argument, and he's been making it in print ever since 2004.
ReplyDeleteThe rise in mass immigration has coincided with growing public opposition to 'health tourism', support for I.D cards and for more stringent criteria for accessing welfare. Again, read his books.
There is no such dilemma, and as you say, David's suggestion of one is 20 years old.
DeleteYou really embarrassed yourself here-Britain is actually among the world's least diverse countries, behind even Finland.
ReplyDeleteThe only Western country in the top 20 most multicultural countries is Canada. Chad in north-central Africa has more than 100 ethnic groups while Togo has 37 tribal groups speaking one of 39 languages while India has almost 800 languages.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-racially-diverse-countries
There are easily 100 ethnic groups, 37 "tribal groups" and 39 languages in Britain. 800 languages? No, but nor would that would apply to any single part of India with the same population as Britain. You people's predictions of race wars have never come to anything, so you have moved on to the erosion of support for the NHS. Tell me when that starts.
DeleteThe progressive dilemma encapsulated by David Goodhart has come to pass in every multicultural country-the facts show that the most diverse countries and even states have the weakest support for welfare and other collective institutions and the lowest levels of social capital-something breaking down in countries from Sweden to France.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever read anything or even been abroad?
Britain, 82% white, is among the least ethnically and culturally countries on Earth (far less ethnically and culturally diverse than the United States, where support for welfare is weaker for that reason). And of course Bevin's concept of an NHS free for all including foreign visitors was only popular or even tenable when we were an even more homogenous nation with truly tiny immigration.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-racially-diverse-countries
far less ethnically and culturally diverse than the United States, where support for welfare is weaker for that reason
ReplyDeleteLet's just leave that there.