Chronic diseases and residency

From the way it reads, they are referring to residence permits i.e. work visas.  It's the newspaper which is using the terms interchangeably  and incorrectly.  There is no such thing as permanent residence in the GCC - only citizenship and Kuwait doesn't exactly hand it out to expats to begin with.

Having said that, this decision is apparently to reduce healthcare costs but it doesn't make any sense.  The easier approach would be to eliminate free healthcare in government hospitals for expats and make private medical insurance mandatory for expats through employers - would boost insurance business.   

All it will do is encourage short term mentality for every expat in the country as some of the "disorders" are common like high BP.  Why would anyone want to put themselves through this mental tension?