roaringmouse

As long as they're resident at the time. The contributions over the years are for the NHS at that time, not in the future (even just 4 years in the future, after moving away from the "hole" to live in "paradise").

Suggesting something like that is the same as someone having medical insurance in the US for years and years, then after cancelling it expecting the insurance company to pay up for medical treatment.

john5655

I'm soon to return to UK permanently after 32 years abroad. I have done my due diligence (I hope thoroughly) and fully understand that I will be entitled to NHS treatment from the date of my return once I provide proof that I am returning to live permanently.

The fact that I have been paying National Insurance contributions over all these years provides me with no additional benefits, nor have any ever been sought by me in the past. On my frequent travels to UK to visit family I have always taken out travel insurance to cover my emergency medical needs.

It seems to me that the OP has obtained his prescription medications by deception, and he's a former police officer???

Sherro

Suggesting something like that is the same as someone having medical insurance in the US for years and years, then after cancelling it expecting the insurance company to pay up for medical treatment.[/QUOTE]

No it isnt, NHS contributions are mandatory, Insurance isnt.

roaringmouse

You miss the point. The mandatory NHS contributions (via tax/NI) are to pay for the NHS at that time. Insurance contributions are to pay for medical treatment at that time.

The system in the UK allows treatment to residents who have not paid for whatever reason, the user-pays system found in the US doesn't. However in any case, contributions are to pay for medical treatment at that time, not years in the future.

Weebie

When a Million brits leave the country every year then a million need to take there place to keep up with services.

Without Immigration the UK would go to the dogs. Despite what many people on this forum think it hasn't.

Giantaxe

In the US, that won't be true from 2014 onwards...

nun

As a resident of the UK the OP was paying for health care coverage. Once he left he is no longer entitled....so even if he was healthy in the UK he still had the benefit of knowing he was covered under the NHS so he got full value for money even if he never used the service.

nun

You are being obtuse and must get the point about asking for heath care once coverage has lapsed be it mandatory or voluntary.

FYI in MA health insurance is mandatory. Many other forms of insurance are mandatory, like car insurance. Of course you might argue that you have a choice as to whether to drive a car , however, I health insurance should be mandatory because we all have a life to protect.

eurotramp

It doesn't matter at all what other people are entitled to, he wasn't because he does not live in the UK any more, that's it. Plus we are talking also an operation and not just a few tablets.
I'm German and have paid over 25 years for health insurance...in Germany you have to pay part of your pay for the privilege..there is no way that I could go there and ask for treatment. It just doesn't work like this.

In a way we are spongers as well because we don't pay income tax, because hubby works for an international company and don't need to pay it.
We are private insured but use the NHS for going to the GP for small problems, but go private for the rest. We also have 2 kids who go to local school, but don't contribute towards it with tax either...

As you see..it doesn't matter if people are on the doll or otherwise..as long as they are living in the country they are entitled.

Such a double morality, moaning about immigrants and people on the doll but trying to cheat the system himself

dunroving

Anyone else getting a sense of deja vu? This discussion comes up every 6-12 months.

First of all, NHS treatment has nothing to do with NI contributions - it's paid for by taxes.

Second, it's not like a bank, where you build up entitlement that you can then draw on after you leave the country. The analogy with US health insurance (or any kind of insurance, for that matter) hits the nail on the head. If you stop paying into the system because you left the country, you can no longer "claim". Those are the rules.

The exceptions of unemployed, etc., are because our society takes care of its disadvantaged - the same courtesy does not extend to residents of other countries. Whether you like it or not does not affect the legal issue of entitlement. In 23 years overseas I didn't once take advantage of the NHS other than one or two bouts of temporary illness, and TBH, if I'd been asked to pay for the doctor visit or prescriptions, I'd have happily done so.

nun

I think the OP was a TROLL, but even those can be the start of good discussions.

I live in the USA and if I retire early I'll have to pay $350/month for mediocre health insurance with big deductibles and also deal with double digit premium increases every year. If I wanted zero deductible it would go up to $500/month and that's just for a single person, I don't know how families would manage. Obviously those sort of increases can't continue - the USA has a health care cost bubble and has no idea of how to control it.

I got great care in the UK until I was 25. I've had great care in the USA until now and even though I have a UK passport I realize that when I go back to the UK I have to use my US insurance in most cases. The NHS is one of the main advantages to me of moving back to the UK when I retire because I won't have to worry about health care. Let's hope Cameron doesn' t cut it to death.

sallysimmons

This is why I support the new law that will come into effect a few years from now. Right now, my rates are being driven higher and higher, in part because healthy young people don't have to have health insurance. Once it's mandated, they go into the pool and help all of us.

But I had an experience yesterday that points to why costs are so high here. I've been having aches and pains for a few months so I went to the doctor. He said 'there are lots of things that can cause this, so let's test for them all and see what shows up.' They took 4 vials of blood and the nurse said 'wow, he's really hitting all the possibilities with these tests!' My guess is that in the UK, they wouldn't take this scatter shot approach but would test for the most likely thing and then the next most likely thing etc.

The result for me is likely better here - I'll get a diagnosis faster. But the cost to the insurance company is huge, and ultimately that comes back to me and everyone else in premium costs. Add to that all the times that a doctor orders an MRI or ultrasound 'just to be on the safe side' or requests an X-ray to put a patient's mind at rest, even though he doesn't think it's necessary, and you have a recipe for ever-increasing costs.

nun

Good post. I work at a medical school and see the students go through their training. Many don't really understand the physiological or biochemical reasons for many illnesses and they simply apply standard check lists in diagnosis. I have 2 personal examples of bad treatment by my doctor (I'vce since changed him)

1) I went for an annual physical and had a BP of 150/90. The doctor put me on an ACE inhibitor. I said that I was nervous about the physical and that probably made my BP go up, that I'm an active cyclist and that surely the BP wasn't so high and that lifestyle changes should be done first, but he insisted on the drugs. I didn't take the drugs, but I bought a BP cuff and for the next week I took my BP twice a day. I averaged 123/75, normal, graphed the data and took it back to the doctor. He took my BP again and it was 140/85, my BP collar got the same numbers. So I was just nervous about being at the doctors. He then suggested I wear a BP device that measured my BP for 48 hours. I refused as I didn't think it was necessary.

2) I bicycle a lot and I developed a couple of lumps in my nether regions. I researched the condition and found that they were probably pressure related fibrous cysts. I went to my doctor and he booked me in to the local hospital for an ultrasound and a consult with a surgeon......great. But then he prescribed me antibiotics in case the lumps were an abscess. I complained that I had no fever, the region was not painful or hot and the lumps felt hard and fibrous. But he still wanted to give me the drugs. This time I took them as it was just for a week. FYI two days later I had the ultrasound and the next day the surgeon removed a fibrous cyst. Great quality health care, but there's so much waste in the system

It seems that doctors in the US are so scared of missing something that they make stupid recommendations either because of law suits or because they get paid more the more procedures and drugs the give out.

Giantaxe

The OP was certainly trollesque, but I am not sure he was a troll... if you look at his prior posts, you'll see that last month he was trying to get a passport in a short timespan to travel back to England. But I guess we'll never know as I doubt he'll be rushing back here after the responses to his post!

Posidrive

I suspect that your hubby may have a similar deal to some people in my company in that "internationaly mobile" employees have their tax payments handled by the company, in which case the company is paying tax on your behalf so that does not make you a scrounger, just lucky. Unfortunately, with my company no-one get the entire tax bill dealt with, it is just deducted at very low rate compared to standard UK tax. The company argues that this balances the tax issues employees working in tax nightware countries such as Norway against the tax free Arab countries.

If this is not the case then if you have your feet on the ground for more that 183 days in the year then I don't see how you can get away with not paying any tax in the UK, unless you are also resident and paying tax in another country that has a tax treaty with the UK. But in this case, to avoid paying any UK tax you would have to be paying more tax in the other country than you would in the UK.

The other possibilites are that his compnay has a bent accountant or that you can expact a knock on the door from the tax man