July 27, 2003
The Costs and Benefits of Immigration
In an effort to trim costs, the Health Department is going to cut out services to old age pensioners. Retirees who have moved to warmer climes will no longer be allowed "free" health care. After all, no health care is free. In the UK, it is being paid for by those involuntary pay packet extractions. If they live for more than six months of the year outside the country where they have paid a lifetime of taxes, they will have to pay again for health care, should they desire to return.
If they need to be hospitalised while living in Spain or France, rather than being able to come home to be near family, they will have to stay put if they don't want to be treated as a non-EU foreigner in the UK.
This is necessary for a number of reasons. Since citizens of any EU country can show up Britain and say they are living here, they are entitled to social security benefits and council housing, as well as the NHS. They need not actually work here - just become "habitually resident" (which for some seems to be a hard habit to break). So if we are going to have to pay for everyone that shows up from everywhere else, we can't very well be taking care of all our citizens.
It's going to get even worse next year when ten more countries join the EU. Much worse. There isn't a lot of motivation for mass migration to places like France, Spain, Germany and Italy. The new EU citizens won't be going there, because they have passed laws preventing Eastern European from working there for as long as seven years. The UK has done the opposite. From May 2004, citizens of Poland, Hungary, Lativia, Lithuania, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta will be just as free as any other EU citizens to drain the Government coffers. They don't even have to bother to marry a Brit.
I am sure that as soon as the reality of the situation hits the Exchequer, more and more Brits will be squeezed out to make sure that every Euro-migrant is integrated into the welfare state.