Immigrant Workers May Need Private Health Cover to Work in UK
Britain is the only country in the world to provide such as long running and comprehensive National Health Service. However the generosity of decades of state provided healthcare has taken its toll. The NHS is facing a crisis that could have serious implications for the future. As Britain and the rest of Europe suffer under one of the most debilitating recessions in history the NHS and other public sector services can no longer afford to classed as ‘bottomless pits’ for cash.
Free Healthcare
The NHS is paid for through taxation so in essence is it not really ‘free’ as at some point the taxpayers in Britain are contributing to its costs. The original purpose of the NHS was to take Britons from the ‘cradle to the grave’ and this serious commitment is a costly promise that has taken an almost unimaginable amount of revenue to fulfil over the years.
However now in these recession heavy times the government can no longer just funnel inexhaustible funds into the NHS and the time has come for some serious and potentially life changing measures.
Migrant Workers
Britain does benefit from migrant workers and they fulfil an important role in employment in the country. This comes at a price though and the social pressures of immigration are vast. Currently migrant workers are entitled to healthcare from the NHS. This is another strain on an already heavily burden national healthcare service and the government has now put forward new measures to help relieve this pressure.
The Home Secretary has announced plans to bring in private healthcare for all foreign workers who want to work in the UK. This means that employers who want to bring in migrant workers would have to show that they had their own private healthcare cover before they could begin employment.
The number of migrant workers in the UK is currently in the hundreds of thousands. By releasing the NHS from the burden of providing the healthcare for this section of society the government could save millions of pounds. This could also be just one of the measures that helps to pull the NHS from the brink of crisis.
Migrant Workers Cap
The announcement regarding private healthcare for migrant workers has come alongside the Coalition Governments pledge to bring down net migration. Foreign workers from outside the EU is the first section to be limited and a ‘worker cap’ will be introduced in April 2011. Currently the Government's Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) are consulting with businesses that rely on migrant workers to set this cap at a feasible level.
In the meantime a temporary cap will be introduced from July onwards to prevent the predicted ‘rush’ of migrant workers expected to precede the permanent cap next year.
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