Not looking good for expat pensioners after BREXIT !!

Parking_Trouble

nigelbb wrote: »

Although probably not EU citizens exercising freedom of movement but more likely Albanian, Kosovan, Bosnian etc The majority of immigrants are not from the EU. Last year net EU migration was 78K while net non-EU migration was 232K i.e. about 3X as many.

Probably right about the car washers. You'd think they'd be easy targets for our Border Force.

There were an estimated 2.27 million EU nationals working in the UK, 61,000 fewer than for a year earlier

There were an estimated 1.29 million non-EU nationals working in the UK, 130,000 more than for a year earlier

The non-EU immigration numbers are vastly inflated by those on study visas being added to those on work visas.

We've always had control of non-EU immigration - they need a visa.

Malthusian

bostonerimus wrote: »

There’s plenty that’s wrong with the EU, but I can’t see how the U.K. will be able to get better trade agreements as a third country and so worry that deregulation, free ports and increased borrowing will be used to pump up the economy for short term stop gaps that will eventually leave the U.K. a rotting hulk anchored off the Continent.

People have been calling the UK a rotting hulk anchored off the Continent since the Suez crisis. And yet we still manage to scrape an existence together.

Much of the Remainer rhetoric matches that which was going around when we withdrew from Egypt and the Empire started to crumble. "We'll lose our place on the world stage!" That place on the world stage would be Executive Producer. The formerly big name actor who is gulled into funding a load of absolute skite by massaging their ego and playing on their fear of becoming irrelevant.

When Boris says he’s going to protect the NHS I believe that he means more outsourcing to US healthcare companies and if they repeat their record of excessive cost that they have in the US UK residents will be paying as enormous fees for medical care.

Business as usual then. Jolly good. Carry on. Did you miss the recent medicine overpayment scam?

We pay enormous fees for medical care right now, they just happen to be absorbed into our taxes. Everyone who has suffered from localised cuts to education services, long term care services, road maintenance, etc, is paying those enormous fees for medical care and for the fetishisation and ringfencing of the NHS.

lvader

I just finished working for a US medical company, we have been doing business with the NHS since the early seventies. Many of the products and services were made in the UK. It would be virtually impossible for the NHS to function without the help of US companies. Frankly it makes virtually no difference if a multinational happens to be headquartered in the US or not. All the European operations are very European centric. On the other hand you do get UK medical companies that don't make products in the UK or even Europe.

bostonerimus

Malthusian wrote: »

We pay enormous fees for medical care right now, they just happen to be absorbed into our taxes. Everyone who has suffered from localised cuts to education services, long term care services, road maintenance, etc, is paying those enormous fees for medical care and for the fetishisation and ringfencing of the NHS.

There's enormous and ENORMOUS. US has the highest per capita cost for medical care in the world...about 3 times what you pay in the UK. An average family can easily pay $10k in annual insurance premiums and then have to pay a $10k. Deductible and drugs are massively more expensive than in the UK. If there's one thing I know for sure you don't want to have US style health care.

Malthusian

No argument there, the US system is the worst of both worlds and there is no prospect of introducing it in the UK. It seems we agree that the UK pays enormous health care costs, just not ENORMOUS ones.

Outsourcing to US health companies != introducing a US-style insurance system with minimal state care unless you're over pensionable age.

It's funny how until 2016 the biggest threat to the NHS was the EU-US trade agreement, aka TTIP, then when the referendum was called, overnight that EU-US trade agreement became a marvellously good thing that only thicko Leavers objected to. Now as Brexit approaches the biggest threat to the NHS is apparently not being in TTIP.



I guarantee you that nearly everyone in this picture from 2015 has reverse ferreted to demanding that the UK stays in TTIP since 2016.

[Deleted User]

One of the reasons for high costs in the US is litigious culture. That brings endless and expensive testing as doctors are trying to protect themselves plus cost of insurance to cover the lawyers fees.

lvader

Malthusian wrote: »

Outsourcing to US health companies != introducing a US-style insurance system with minimal state care unless you're over pensionable age.

.

We have been outsourcing parts of the NHS for many many years and the NHS doesn't differentiate it's approach depending on where the company happens to have it's headquarters.

lvader

The swiss health system is much closer to the US than the UK and we also work with Swiss health companies.

bostonerimus

There’s nothing wrong in buying US products and drugs as long as the NHS can negotiate on price. It’s in the area of insurance and healthcare delivery that the NHS must be careful. If that is combined with incremental changes to the way the NHS is funded it could be nasty and get very expensive for people in the U.K.

All this talk of healthcare relates nicely to the original question as its one of the big uncertainties for expat retirees. My friend who lives in France isn’t retired and so is in the French system as a resident right now, but she, and 30k other U.K. citizens living in France, don’t know how they will be treated in a no deal Brexit scenario, and that’s why she’d rather be French than British right now.

lvader

bostonerimus wrote: »

There’s nothing wrong in buying US products and drugs as long as the NHS can negotiate on price. It’s in the area of insurance and healthcare delivery that the NHS must be careful. If that is combined with incremental changes to the way the NHS is funded it could be nasty and get very expensive for people in the U.K.

All this talk of healthcare relates nicely to the original question as its one of the big uncertainties for expat retirees. My friend who lives in France isn’t retired and so is in the French system as a resident right now, but all she and 30k other U.K. citizens living in France are don’t know how they will be treated in a no deal Brexit scenario, and that’s why she’d rather be French than British right now.

The NHS doesn't just buy drugs and products, a lot of stuff is already outsourced like lab work, compounding, training, servicing. Sometimes it makes sense to outsource and sometimes it doesn't, but the flexibility is important. Once you have politicians putting arbitrary obstacles in the way things start to break down. What I can assure you is that when it comes to outsourcing the location of the company headquarters has zero affect on price or quality.