3Patients may have to show two forms of identification to get some NHS care, the senior civil servant at the Department of Health has said.
Chris Wormald told a Commons committee it was a controversial move but already happened in some NHS trusts.
The NHS has "a lot further to go" in reclaiming money for treating foreign visitors, he said.
Committee chairwoman Meg Hillier raised concerns that some British residents might not have passports or other ID.
Head of the BMA council Dr Mark Porter said the discussions were a distraction given that so-called health tourism was "such a small problem" for the NHS.
NHS Trusts in England are legally obliged to check whether patients are eligible for free non-emergency NHS treatment and to recover any costs from overseas patients.
Media captionDr Meirion Thomas talks about health tourism to Radio 4's Today programme
In numbers: Treating overseas visitors
The government estimates £2bn a year is spent on treating overseas visitors - and only about £280m of this is thought to be deliberate health tourism whereby people come from abroad specifically to get free treatment they are not entitled to.
The figure includes the cost of GP care, emergency treatment and routine hospital services, such as scans, maternity care and non-emergency operations.
The government has focused on recouping money on routine hospital care. It set a target of recovering £500m a year by 2017-18, but is behind schedule.
In 2014-15, when it set the goal, the NHS recovered just £97m.
A year later that had increased to £289m, but most of that - £164m - came from the introduction of health surcharge on visa applications of £150 for students and £200 for other people. This entitles them to free NHS care.
However, hospitals have struggled to significantly increase the amount they recover from patients they should be charging.
UK residents and asylum seekers are entitled to free treatment. But the governments of patients from within the European Economic Area should be charged for the treatment they receive, while visitors from outside that area should be charged personally if they have not paid the surcharge.
Mr Wormald, permanent secretary at the Department of Health, which is responsible for the NHS in England, told the Public Accounts Committee: "We have some trusts that are looking at asking for two forms of ID before treatment.
"Now that is obviously quite a controversial thing to do but... those are the kinds of things we want to look at.
Image copyrightPAImage captionChris Wormald said the government was "going very slowly on some of these questions"
"We don't have evaluated results of those yet, but what those trusts are reporting is that does lead to an increase in identification."
He added: "There are individual trusts like Peterborough who are doing that, who are reporting that it makes a big difference and there you are saying, 'Please come with two forms of identity, your passport and your address,' and they use that to check whether people are eligible or not.
"Now it is obviously quite a controversial thing to do to say to the entire population, 'You now have to prove identity.'"
But Ms Hillier said she had constituents who had no photo ID.
She said: "Because they have never travelled, they have no passport; they have no driver's licence because they have never driven, they still live at home because they can't afford to move out so they've never had a utility bill in their name.
"Perfectly entitled to health care, British born, British resident; how are you going to make sure that people have access easily to the National Health Service without having to go through a very humiliating and impossible-to-meet set of demands?"
Mr Wormald responded: "This is why we are going very slowly on some of these questions and individual trusts are trying these out."
Dr Porter told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Why are we discussing this today? We've got an Autumn Statement tomorrow, we've got an NHS with a deficit opening up over the course of this Parliament because of the funding decisions taken about how to address resources in the NHS.
"This is little other than a pinprick on the top of the actual problems facing the NHS."
A Department of Health spokesman said: "The NHS is a national - not an international - health service and we are determined to stamp out abuse of the system to ensure it remains free at the point of need in this country.
"We consulted earlier this year on extending the charging of migrants and visitors using the NHS. We will set out further steps in due course."
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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