The EU is floating a plan to allow EU citizens to get health care in any member country if they are facing undue delays in their own country. Some Labour MPs are concerned that this would lead to an internal market that could kill the NHS.
My guess is that they can see a system where the NHS transforms into a giant, centralized HMO, paying for and managing services provided by private companies. Initially these would be based overseas, but it’s not much of a step to see the companies setting up in the UK initially to serve foreign ‘customers’, but in due course changing opinions to the point where they could take UK patients.
Terrifying, isn’t it? To be honest the only real fear here seems to be the fear of change. There are clear frictional costs involved in getting treatment overseas, so establishing these businesses will be a marginal activity. And if the NHS is better than the alternatives (which, presumably, it must be in the Labour politician’s eyes) then the only way it can lose is through government intervention that overwhelms that advantage. And Labour would never do that, right?