That sounds like very sound economic policy on the part of the Spanish Gov’t.
No doubt the French Gov’t will end up taking the same view in the event that it might become necessary.
let’s hope so
Under what terms and conditions? Can you see the Spanish providing healthcare and possible future social care for over four hundred thousand British pensioners? I think not. Somewhere or other, the British government will be asked to pick up the tab, which already runs into a few hundred millions.
I should think probably under exactly the same ones as for Spanish citizens. In a similar way that here in France we can join PUMA on the same basis as a French citizen. Seems reasonable to me.
A system like puma doesn’t exist in Spain, and people on a flat rate English pension wouldn’t qualify for a residence permit, so basically its down to the UK government to agree to pay. The Spanish already whinge about British pensioners clogging up their health service, just imagine what they would say if they found out they were paying for the the British pensioners to clogg up their health service. If I remember correctly, an awful lot of Brits back in the UK blamed foreigners for all the problems in the NHS.
Apparently the UK government pays Spain around 200 million a year to cover Brit residents healthcare bills.
My understanding is that the continuance of the existing reciprocal healthcare arrangements has already been agreed in the Brussels talks.
No idea on that one, but the article that I read on the subject only mentioned the continuation of the EHIC, made no mention whatsoever of the S1.
Why are we not all sending letters to Macron asking for France to make the same announcement on British residents’ rights? It’s feasible, would cost France very little, if anything, and makes the EU look humane and decent in contrast to an increasingly noisy and nasty UK administration.
Someone has to pay for the healthcare and any state benefits that expats living in France are receiving. I’ve no idea how much the UK pays France each year to cover their British residents healthcare, so it might indeed cost very little or might cost an awful lot.
Someone has to pay for the healthcare that British expats in France are receiving. Well in my case anyway, it’s me - I work and pay my cotisations the same as French freelances.
In Spain maybe it’s true most British expats are retired. In France? Don’t think so.
A system like PUMa does exist in Spain. After a year of residence there (during which private health insurance is needed) people can pay to join the Spanish health system. It costs more if you are over age 65 but it can be done.
‘The basic monthly fee is 60€ for the under 65s and 157€ for those aged 65 and above.’
Spain is one of the countries that pays a set fee per person registered with an S1 for healthcare. France is one of those who charge the actual costs incurred by pensioners on S1s direct to the UK.
If this was my family then we’ve cost the UK very little from France because we’ve hardly used the system but Spain would have made quite a lot out of us if we lived there. However, if my mum was in Spain in the last year and a half then Spain would be out of pocket. As it is, she’s in France too so France will have charged all her healthcare back to the UK.
If there is no deal and no continuance of the S1 system then Spain will lose out, since the amount they charge pension aged people is way less than the set fee they charge to the UK at the moment.
However, I’m not sure whether they’ll still be able to charge costs anyway, because there were bilateral reciprocal agreements in place via the Council of Europe that haven’t been cancelled, so they may come back in if the S1 system ends. I think people had to process the reimbursement requests themselves though, back then, so it would be a matter of paying up front and then claiming it back from the UK.