When you think it's an ageing slice of our demographic who mostly do go over they must have a big impact on the small funds Spain have

An ID card? We already have one effectively, a National Insurance number. It's needed to claim most benefits.

I'm very, very wary of making people have to produce a card or ID of some sort at a hospital. I think the only minor problem that is health tourism can be solved in different ways.

But it's a nice bit of diversion away from the governments real term cuts to health and the real problems facing the NHS, and is a nice way of the government trying to look tough on those nasty foreigners.

No issue with 'foreigners' it's numbers on resources. If we can afford them and accommodate them ie school places,not over burden NHS then iI'm cool with it BUT can we?

Its been fifteen years since my dad came back to England to die but prior to that he'd lived in Benidorm for eight (or was it ten) years an he was the archetypal Englishman abroad although he did socialise with Spanish friends and he lived in an apartment at the back of town where all of the Spanish service staff lived - his use of the Spanish language after all those years was limited to a few words that couldn't be understood away from the coast when I'd visit and drive him back to the UK from time to time.



Probably more pertinent to your question he rented his apartment from a landlord who asked no questions for cash every month and so never registered as a resident (he'd have to pay local taxes if he did), his UK car that he took out there wasn't taxed in the UK anymore and because he wasn't technically in Spain at all he didn't have to register or tax it there either, he insured it in England on a tourist green card basis.



For health care he could use his UK NHS number to receive treatment at the Spanish equivalent of an NHS hospital which gives its citizens a basic level of care but most working Spaniards took out medical insurance to be treated at the private Benidorm hospital that you see in all the TV documentaries, when he found that he had prostate cancer he paid for private care there and had his prostate removed at a cost of £2000, later when he found he had the Benidorm desease (liver cancer, or kidney cancer, highest killer of retired folk in that town) he returned to the UK to die.



Thats how he rolled

any opportunity to stick two fingers up at authority, Tony Soprano had nothing on my old man

PS - his flatmate stayed on after my dad died and two years later and also dying from liver disease he repeated my dads journey back home to die but he left it until the very last minute and literally died on the plane - true story, its on the blog somewhere they were a pair of characters

Its been fascinating reading the comments section of these articles in the Mail.



"I'm not standing for these people invading my country. Glad I'm emigrating"



Oh the irony.

The Daily Mail act like we don't already have spongers and criminals, can we build a wall round Wigan and stop them entering England?

Well suppose that's one way to go!

I've often wondered about issuing death certificates if a person died in the air. I know from research you can get birth & death certificates "at sea", but I wonder how they go about it "in the air". Would it be the coroner for the country in which you were landing in or left? Same with the registrar.

Think it might be the country's airspace they are in

Is it not where the plane is registered?

Would you be comfortable acting as an unpaid border guard?



After all, the buses you drive are subject to massive taxpayer subsidy, so why shouldn't you be checking the "rights" of anyone taking advantage of such taxpayer generosity?



Migrant workers are net contributors to the state, if the state chooses not to invest that contribution back into effective deployment of adequate resource, that is a problem of the state, not of migrant workers.



As for deterring people from visiting doctors or hospitals, how will you feel when there is a TB epidemic?