{"id":21470,"date":"2013-07-03T09:04:09","date_gmt":"2013-07-03T08:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=21470"},"modified":"2013-07-03T09:04:09","modified_gmt":"2013-07-03T08:04:09","slug":"wont-the-new-nhs-visa-levy-on-immigrants-increase-health-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/07\/03\/wont-the-new-nhs-visa-levy-on-immigrants-increase-health-tourism\/","title":{"rendered":"Won&#8217;t the new NHS visa levy on immigrants increase &#8216;health tourism&#8217;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The FT, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/0\/be125594-e337-11e2-bd87-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2Xxth6fLd\" target=\"_blank\">amongst many, reports that<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Non-EU citizens who come to the UK to work or study will have to pay a healthcare levy of at least \u00a3200 on top of visa costs before they are allowed to enter the country, under plans to be set out today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I have to admit that my first reaction to this was to think that this was an advert for health tourism. If you have paid \u00a3200 and then have access to the NHS I think many will think that excellent value for money and will decide to take full advantage of it. Indeed, the payment may well encourage them to do so as much as possible.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes initiatives have perverse\u00a0consequences. This one will, I predict\u00a0achieve\u00a0the exact\u00a0opposite\u00a0of what it intends and will both encourage 'health tourism' and demand for GP services from temporary residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The FT, amongst many, reports that: Non-EU citizens who come to the UK to work or study will have to pay a healthcare levy of<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/07\/03\/wont-the-new-nhs-visa-levy-on-immigrants-increase-health-tourism\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nhs","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}