GOVERNMENT plans to make migrants pay a ''health surcharge'' as part of their visa application could cost the NHS more in the long run, academics have warned.
Anyone from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) coming to the UK for longer than six months is now required to pay a £200-a-year fee, which the Department of Health said would ensure they make an "appropriate financial contribution to the cost of the health services they may use".
Writing in the BMJ, Lilana Keith of the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants in Brussels, and Ewout van Ginneken, a senior researcher at Berlin University of Technology, said that the Government wants the public to believe the country will become less appealing to undocumented migrants and will save taxpayers' money, but "this view is shortsighted and misleading".
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They said that the estimated 618,000 undocumented migrants living in the UK - who would not have paid the surcharge - contribute to the economy through their employment, from buying goods and services, and may even pay or have paid income tax.
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