Joined up government ...

The (excellent!) UK Libertarian has drawn my attention to this story:

Visitors to the UK could be required to hold health insurance before they can enter the country, the government says.

The move is an attempt to crack down on “health tourists” who come for treatment but fail to pay for it.

Ah yes, let's make it even less attractive for those damn foreigners to come here and spend money. After all, which Daily Mail reader doesn't instinctively know that darkies come here and drain our hospitals?

But serendipitously, Timmy has an interesting factoid:

The Department of Health is trying to recover £22 million from foreign nationals who have had NHS treatment in the past two years and not paid their bills.

At one level it’s a significant sum. £ 10 million or so spondoolicks a year is real money.

At another level it ain’t. At something like £100 billion a year spent on the NHS £10 million is, umm, let’s see if I can get the right number of zeroes here…..0.001% of the system cost.

Why are we even discussing this?

Must be an election coming or something.

Cunts.