Your EHIC travel insurance card has been reprieved and will still be valid tomorrow

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• Bill says:

  31 Dec31 December 09:22

  My dream if retiring to Spain officially ends tonight. From what I’ve read I will require 2,500 euro income per month during retirement. Unlikely.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    31 Dec31 December 09:43

    OK for all those retirees coming to the end of their work life right now on final salary pensions …

    We’ve been fucked by the oldies once again. You never know if you’ve got enough years before you retire we might re join.

    • KellyK says:

      31 Dec31 December 13:10

      Spot on

    • BlueThroughCrimp says:

      31 Dec31 December 13:31

      No you’ve not. If the young went out and voted they could have stayed in.
      Easy to blame old folk who go and vote, while taking no responsibility for their own inactions.

      • J says:

        31 Dec31 December 21:31

        Maybe, just maybe, if you want younger working age people to vote, elections shouldn’t take place on a Thursday.

        • BlueThroughCrimp says:

          1 Jan1 January 02:22

          Postal votes happen for some days before.
          And it’s not as if it wasn’t a surprise that it was such an important referendum, and their very future was at stake.
          But no. Blaming old folk is much easier than taking responsibility.

  • Anna says:

    31 Dec31 December 10:08

    People are deliberately seeing obstacles. There’s nothing to stop you going to Spain for several months of the year at a time. Are you saying you intended to go to Spain and never actually leave again?

    • KellyK says:

      31 Dec31 December 13:08

      You don’t think Brexit has created obstacles for people wanting to retire to EU countries ! What planet do you live on?

    • A says:

      31 Dec31 December 14:36

      Can definitely see obstacles now we have left the EU. Can’t say I can see the benefits. Please can you help and let me know what they are?

  • Sandgrounder says:

    31 Dec31 December 10:25

    Things are a little bit different now, you will now need a visa or a residence permit to spend more than 90 days from any 180 in the Shengen area. You can be banned from re-admission if you break this rule. You certainly can get a study visa, this is one option. But you can’t just do a border run and reset the clock.

    • Anna says:

      31 Dec31 December 10:33

      If you’re intending to settle permanently it’s still quite straightforward to apply for a residence permit. Certainly if you really want to go and live in Spain it’s not the desperate impossibility people are making it out to be. There’s a wealth of information online on how to go about this.

  • Anna says:

    31 Dec31 December 10:29

    … And the initial income requirement is only for the first five years, then it drops to 800 euros or so per month for a couple. There are loads of websites with advice on moving to Spain after Brexit, if you can be bothered to make the effort.

    • Sandgrounder says:

      31 Dec31 December 10:59

      I think people have made the effort to check, and the reality is many lower income pensioners who would really benefit from the reduced cost of living will not be able to meet the requirements. That is why they are disappointed. Daily Express anti-EU bigotry, Union flag-waving and Empire nostalgia won’t help here I am afraid. The days of sending in the gunships are long gone.

      • Anna says:

        31 Dec31 December 12:56

        Where are you getting it from that Spain is a low-cost paradise, Sandgrounder? That went the way of the peseta about 2 decades ago. Again, you don’t seem very well informed. And what do the last 2 sentences of your post even mean? Are you one of these people who think that throwing unsubstantiated verbal abuse around constitutes intelligent debate because HFP readers are usually above that?

        • James says:

          1 Jan1 January 01:21

          Anna, what are you on about? Verbal abuse?!! Where?!!!

        • Nori says:

          1 Jan1 January 10:16

          Anna, please!!

  • Mike says:

    31 Dec31 December 11:29

    Bill – it’s not like you can retire with less than 2500 euro a month income ! Unless you plan to live on fresh air

    • SteveD says:

      31 Dec31 December 12:43

      I’m sure lots of pensioners living on the Basic State Pension would be interested to know that…

    • J says:

      31 Dec31 December 21:35

      I’d assume most people looking to retire to Spain would also intend to own their property there outright. Quite difficult to spend 2,500 Euro a month if you don’t have rent/mortgage to pay!

  • BuildTheWall says:

    31 Dec31 December 14:27

    Good. The state pension will be spent here.

• TGLoyalty says:

  31 Dec31 December 09:41

  So it’s the whole member state not the corrupt ambulances / general manager, I’m 99% they would be in on the scam.

  It’s a horrible time to learn you’ve been scammed and unlikely you’ll ask for a transfer in circumstances where time is critical.

  Before I did my first trip to Spain in the late 2000’s the very first page warned of the ambulance scam and to ensure you know when the local public hospital is and insist on being taken there.

  • Anna says:

    31 Dec31 December 10:53

    And yet you want to stay in a union with these types of places and keep giving them your hard earned tax money? This is what I don’t understand about Remain voters!

    • ChrisBCN says:

      31 Dec31 December 11:13

      That’s the problem. Many people have never tried to understand the opposing ‘side’ which has led to divisions. It is of course about more than one positive or one negative thing – it is a balance of both positive and negative things, whichever side you supported.

      • RussellH says:

        31 Dec31 December 12:06

        Chris, there may be a balance of both positive and negative things as you see it, but that is almost certainly not true.
        I doubt if Farage or Bill Cash think that there is anything +ve about the EU.
        Equally, there is nothing about the EU that would make me want to leave. Of course it has many flaws, but they can, over time, get sorted. To my mind, the flaws are always going to be massivlely outweighed by the advantages.

    • RussellH says:

      31 Dec31 December 11:58

      For some reason, many in the UK seem to think that corruption does not happen here, only in other countries, when of course it happens here too. Robert Maxwell? Dominic Chappell? to mention just two.
      I remember a seemingly very pleasant English man I met at a trade fair in Vienna – he was known to a number of others that I knew well and trusted. One evening he started boasting about how he and some others had sued a German local authority over corrupt administration.
      Three months later I read in Travel Trade Gazette how his own company had suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed with huge debts. St Matthew’s Gospel, Chap 7 Verse 3 comes to mind.

• Alan says:

  31 Dec31 December 09:57

  Sounds like you’ve got a touch of RAS syndrome, Rob 😉😂

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome

• Definitas says:

  31 Dec31 December 10:34

  I needed to see a doctor whilst staying with in-laws in Germany a couple of years ago. They phoned their GP who offered to see me that day. I produced my EHIC on arrival to be told it was not valid as they, in common with almost all practices and hospitals in Germany, were private. They advised me that it would be very difficult to find anyone who would accept the card and so I paid up. Fortunately, my travel insurance covered the cost minus my excess. Anyone who believes that the EHIC replaces travel insurance cover is very much mistaken, not least because, in a life threatening emergency, you do not want to be trying to negotiate being taken to somewhere that accepts the EHIC. However, for EU citizens coming here it is a gift

  • RussellH says:

    31 Dec31 December 12:19

    That does not fit with my experience at all.
    Some years ago my partner slipped in a hotel bathroom and broke her arm. The hotelier summoned an ambulance which took her to the local hospital. I dealt with the paperwork – once I had produced her E111 and they had photocopied it we were treated pretty much exactly as would have happened in a UK hospital [and my partner was a hospital consultant, so she knew.]
    The only thing travel insurance paid for was a wheelchair at MUC and BHX. Nothing from the hospital.
    Some years later I lost my asthma inhaler in Germany. My hotel booked me an appointment with a GP to get a prescription. On arrival I was asked for my EHIC. No charge to the GP. I had to pay the pharmacy for the actual inhaler, but was told by my business partner there that that was normal – he would have had to pay too.

    • xcalx says:

      31 Dec31 December 14:33

      15 years ago I lost my Ventalin inhaler on the Queen Mary 2. Was made to visit doctor, get instructions on how to use from a nurse, fill in no end of disclaimers 2 1/2 hours later and £180 lighter I surfaced with the said £2 item.

      • Nick_C says:

        31 Dec31 December 14:50

        15 years ago, I got dermatitis while on a cruise around S America. I didn’t have a steroid cream with me, and the spots turned into weeping pustules, which I tried to keep clean with antiseptic lotions. About three days later, I woke up with pain under my left arm, and realised I had an infection which had spread to the lymphatic system.

        An hour on a bed in the ship’s hospital for some IV antibiotics, strong steroid creams, and a couple of dressing changes came to $2000. Everything was charged at Medicare rates, and the bill was fully itemised. I was charged by the hour for the time I spent on the bed. I was even charged for the disposal tip of the thermometer, and the needle used to administer the IV.

        It was an eye opener. I am not surprised the NHS can’t provide the paperwork for US insurance companies; we are just not geared up to cost everything that way. And the cost of setting up comprehensive charging systems might well outweigh the benefit of any additional income that could be claimed. While I’m all in favour of cost control, the NHS is already overly bureaucratic and inefficient, and the ratio of administrators to clinicians is alarming.

  • the_real_a says:

    31 Dec31 December 14:43

    The same experience for people i know in Spain and Greece. One had a broken arm, the medical facility said they were only entitled to a temporary cast and told to return home to the UK. In Greece it was very difficult to find a govt hospital at the location as all clinics were private. It required a 5 hours car and ferry journey whilst suffering from kidney stones. The practical implication of claiming on the EHIC varies significantly and i always found it bizarre that people would travel without any other insurance.

• Lost confused says:

  31 Dec31 December 10:42

  Does anyone know the answer to this? Is a foreign national living in the UK and paying the NHS Surcharge entitled to an EHIC/GHIC? gov.uk doesn’t give any clues on this if your not an EEA citizen…

  • AJA says:

    31 Dec31 December 10:54

    Do you have an NHS number? This is not the same number as your NI number. If you do then I think you “may” be entitled to apply for the E/GHIC.

  • Jk says:

    31 Dec31 December 11:40

    Yes you can. I’ve done it and know others that have also. Just apply and see what happens.

    • Lost confused says:

      31 Dec31 December 13:03

      Thank KK and JK. We will try the pdf form and perhaps we will have it before our next EU trip as we won’t now be going to Paris next week.

• NFH says:

  31 Dec31 December 11:11

  Nobody has explained the rationale for this anomaly on EHICs. Why should the NHS pay for UK residents’ healthcare in the EU only if the UK resident is an EU citizen but not if the UK resident in British? UK-resident EU citizens and British citizens all pay the same rates of tax, so why is there a difference in what the NHS will pay for?

  I realise that this will become a moot point in light of the trade deal, but it would have been an unjustified anomaly if there had been no deal.

  • Anna says:

    31 Dec31 December 13:09

    That was my gripe with the pre-deal arrangement; I wonder if it was one of the conditions Theresa May agreed to when she was making such a hash of the negotiations.

    • James says:

      1 Jan1 January 01:26

      Anna, you really are deluded, aren’t you? The deal we’ve ended up with is basically May’s but slightly worse. Suggest you stop seeing everything through the prism of your right leaning world view.

• GeorgeJ says:

  31 Dec31 December 12:34

  Thanks ChrisC, that is a useful link to bookmark.

• Bariummeal says:

  31 Dec31 December 13:24

  What the newspapers don’t seem to have realised is that the EHIC will continue to be issued and funded for EU nationals living in the UK by the DWP. In addition Brits living in EU before 1st Jan 2021 will retain them. Thus Irish Citizens (even dual nats) in GB can just apply for one.

  Brits living in GB will lose EHIC but get a GHIC.

  So, as an EU citizen living in GB, is it better to have an EHIC or a GHIC? Currently we do not know.

  • ChrisC says:

    31 Dec31 December 14:51

    To all intents and purposes the only difference between an EHIC and a GHIC is the latter does not have ‘Europe’ in it’s title.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.