While expatriates continue the fight for better voting rights in UK general elections and for Tony Blair’s 15-year-rule to be overturned, Britons living over seas appear to have been dealt another blow.
British people living in other European countries could find themselves forced to take out private health insurance due to a clampdown on expats using the country’s National Health Service.
Many British people in other EU countries return to the UK for routine doctors’ visits, and many fail to register with a local doctor in their new country, particularly in the early stages following a move abroad.
But under new rules that come into force this month, people who make use of the NHS in the UK will be asked to declare that they are an ‘ordinarily resident’ in the country.
So, quite simply, despite perhaps having paid into the system all their lives, British expatriates returning home or needing medical treatment in the UK are going to be means tested while other nationalities get it, and many other essential services, handed to them on a plate.
It is a disgraceful way to treat hard working British tax payers who, out of their free will to choose, have elected to retire or move overseas. The NHS may be short of funds, always has been always will be, but why target British expatriates to try and fill the cash short fall while thousands of others are fleecing the system?