I don't think it is crumbling. As it was when I left the UK, NI was a separtate issue from National pension and run from two different offices even though your NI partly went towards your state pension.Big Boy wrote:
Another part of my now crumbling cunning plan was that if any of us developed a serious disease such as Cancer, we would return to the UK at a rate of knots, and benefit from all of that National Insurance I've paid. I guess thats another re-think, or does it work a bit like visa renewals ie pop back to the UK for a quick holiday every 2 years and 11 months?
Except for income taxation purposes, private pension or health schemes are none of their business.
The fact that you have been credited an NI stamp every week until your are sixty five surely the entitles you to claim from the NHS for the rest of your life. I belive this applies in any Europena Union country also). I would not be surprised though if the UK ultra right wing government has changed to rules to pay for F16s and other hardware and all the immigrants it has had to take from Somalia, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Definitely check out the site listed above, apparently they (UK Gov) are getting quiite good with their web sites now that they have found it is cheaper than employing loads of people to answer phones. It can be difficult to get to the English Language section so a basic knowledge of Arabic or Urdu is always advisable as I believe English is being pushed into the third language now in the UK. (Where you are I suppose you could always try Welsh).
This is another good topic and it woud be interesting to hear of peoples actual situations rather than the speculations of the guy in the pub who knows more after each beer Chang.
My head is starting to hurt, too much information 
because the people who were signed up to retirement visas when it was 400K are still on 400K 