UK Health Service Loses $999Mln on Treating EU Citizens - Brexit Campaign

A campaign advocating the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union said that the United Kingdom pays 700 million pounds annually more for providing health services to EU citizens that it regains from treatment of British citizens in the European Union.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The United Kingdom pays 700 million pounds ($999 million) annually more for providing health services to EU citizens that it regains from treatment of British citizens in the European Union, Vote Leave, a campaign advocating the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, said Tuesday.

Vote Leave’s new data shows that "health tourism from the EU has cost us billions… If we vote [to] leave, we will be able to stop handing over so much money to the EU and we would be able to spend our money on priorities here in the UK, like abolishing prescription charges and investing in the NHS [National Health Service]," Gisela Stuart, the chair of Vote Leave, said, as quoted by The Guardian newspaper.

The UK nationals are set to vote on June 23 in an in/out referendum, after Prime Minister David Cameron and 27 of his European colleagues secured a deal in February to grant the United Kingdom a special status within the bloc.

Cameron, who won the 2015 election on a promise to renegotiate the terms of Britain's EU membership, now leads the "Stay" campaign.