INSURANCE
CUTS DELAYED |
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Some Ontario motorists will
wait as long as 22 months to benefit from insurance premium cuts that Dalton
McGuinty's Liberals promised to deliver within 90 days of taking office. |
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Data obtained by the London
Free Press shows the delay, caused by slow processing, will cost drivers about
$575 million. |
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The processing bottleneck came
about because the new provincial government didn't add staff to the office to
which insurers were required to file rate reductions by Jan. 23. |
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''The rate filings were very
complex and it takes time to go through them,'' said Rowena McDougall, a
spokeswoman for the provincial Finance Ministry. Ontario's 61 insurers typically
file rate changes once or twice a year. With those filings spread out across
the year, fewer than 10 typically come in a single month, a regulator said. |
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But regulators weren't able to
keep pace when all 61 insurers filed rate reductions in January. While some
took effect April 15, others won't until next month, perhaps later. |
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Drivers won't enjoy lower
premiums until they renew their insurance, and since most renew once a year,
that means some won't get a break until as late as August 2005. |
On average, motorists will have
to wait until the end of October -- a year after the Liberals took office.
Exposed:
ploys of health tourists who exploit NHS
THE scale of NHS tourism is
revealed today. Letters from doctors and hospital managers expose the methods
used by foreigners to obtain free treatment. |
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The documents, sent to the
Department of Health and never published, provide firsthand accounts of the way
the system is being abused. |
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A string of NHS staff speak out
about the problem for the first time, detailing how visitors avoid paying for
care. |
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Among the practices revealed
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. Foreigners granted visas to
come to Britain for private medical treatment transferring to the NHS. |
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. Abuse of maternity services,
with heavily pregnant women flying to Britain to give birth. |
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.Overseas nationals enrolling
on cheap courses to exploit exemptions from NHS charges for foreign students
and their families. |
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In another example of how
resources are being drained, it is revealed that nurses are regularly forced to
escort failed asylum seekers home if they are too sick to travel alone. Health
chiefs admit there is little hope of recovering the cost of plane tickets. |
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The letters were sent by NHS
staff in response to a public consultation on how to tackle health tourism. |
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Details of the responses come
days after doctors at the British Medical Association's annual conference
claimed up to one in 10 patients is fraudulently claiming NHS care. |
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Doctors agree that foreigners
should get free treatment in an emergency, but say many seek free care for
longterm conditions. |
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Under guidelines introduced in April,
overseas patients seeking NHS hospital treatment must prove they qualify. Staff
are supposed to question them when they turn up in hospital. |
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Anyone who fails to satisfy the
criteria is expected to pay in advance. But many NHS staff say they will not
grill patients in clear need of medical help. |
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Several hospital trusts say the
only solution is identity cards, or compulsory medical insurance for non-EU
citizens visiting the UK. |
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Bids to beat system |
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.Arriving pregnant: Heavily
pregnant Nigerians and Jamaicans are coming to Britain to give birth on the
NHS. |
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Aruna Murgai, income generation
manager at North West London Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "These ladies are
quite maturely pregnant when obtaining visitors' visas. Why are they permitted
to do so?" |
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.Trying to register with GP: A
Middle Eastern woman studying in Britain tried to register her mother with the
NHS, thinking she would then be eligible for free long-term care. GP Dr John
Lethem, chairman of the British Association of Health Services in Higher
Education, said: "The mother ... was initially treated as an emergency
case but when continued admission was planned, a hospital charge was raised.
The student tried to register her mother at our practice, stating that her
mother's intention was to stay for one year." |
.Enrolling at college: Visitors
from abroad are enrolling on the cheapest college courses to use the exemption
from NHS charges for foreign students and their immediate relatives. The visa
system which allows overseas visitors to enter Britain to receive private
medical care is also being abused. The cases are revealed by Westminister
councillor Barry Taylor, representing St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, who
says the patients transfer to the NHS when they run out of money.
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