National healthcare under pressure: linguistic diversity, nation-state values and welfare state needs

Abstract This article examines the interaction between the welfare state and the nation state in Danish parliamentary politicians’ discourse on migrants. The focus is on public healthcare. Drawing on Critical Sociolinguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis, we look at two debates in the parliamentary health committee, and we examine how the two categories of migrants patients and doctors are represented discursively. We show that migrant patients are portrayed as disloyal and societal burdens due to insufficient Danish language skills. These skills get articulated as resulting from patients’ own choices, and therefore some politicians find it reasonable and legitimate to restrict their rights to healthcare interpreting. In contrast, migrant health professionals are portrayed as valuable and as willing resources for a healthcare system in crisis. Yet this category of migrants are seen as faced with bureaucratic obstacles which the state is articulated as responsible of failing to remedy. We argue that it is difficult for the state to handle its new role as employer for international professionals as for decades the focus has been on keeping migrants out. Furthermore, we show a general lack of understanding of what language learning implies for adult learners.