Prescription charges for over 60s

[herewegogc]

Just found out that there is a government consultation going on about this. The aim is to raise the age for free prescriptions to the state pension age. Ends on 1st September. AIBU to be unhappy that this is being done by stealth? Or have I missed the massive publicity campaign? Fill in the consultation here: www.gov.uk/government/consultations/aligning-the-upper-age-for-nhs-prescription-charge-exemptions-with-the-state-pension-age

[quote luckylavender]@VikingVolva - England is the only Home Nation which charges for prescriptions. [/quote]
and over 90% are free

Bearing in mind only 1 in 20 people pay for prescriptions, and England are the only UK nation to pay for them, then yes it's unfair.

See this is all well and good, but my DD20 suffers severe asthma, and also needs quite a few prescriptions to keep her alive. She's a student and has not been able to afford to pick up some of these medications immediately, having to wait to be paid or asking if I can transfer her some.

Why hasn't she applied for an HC 2 or HC 3? Or get a prepayment certificate?

Form here - if she applies now she can also apply to get back any charges paid in the last three months.

www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/Healthcosts/Documents/2016/HC1-April-2016.pdf

Also students used to be able to claim sickness benefits over the summer break, it is worth looking in to if her health prevents her from working full time. I know they keep changing the rules.

The proposal makes sense to me. The bus pass is already aligned with state pension age (in England) so prescription charges are next in line.

For my own meds (repeat prescription every 8 weeks) it would however be a bit annoying to have to pay £10, as I know from the NICE website that the actual cost to the NHS for the 8 weeks supply is £2.02.

With a private prescription, I could buy my meds for 72p for 8 weeks supply. But I think GPs are not allowed to write a private prescription for any drug that is available on the NHS. So, to get the private prescription, I would have to pay for a separate, private GP consultation, which would inevitably eliminate the saving of buying the drugs privately.

@echt

I think you'll find that such folk are immensely entitled and deserve nowt because young people were in lockdown, so they need to share the pain.

See also WISPA for women in the pensions pinch.

I turned 60 last year, so far I have had one free prescription. I do agree that it makes sense for those of working age to continue to pay. Last year at the start of lockdown my department in the supermarket where I work closed so I switched from 9am starts to 4am starts and since then I have been working as an online picker. So you are right, I have not had the same lockdown experience as many of the young people I have been picking for, instead I spent months as an unvacinated person in my 60's working and putting myself at risk. Particulary worrying when some of my colleagues contracted Covid and a quarter of the online department got pinged and isolated as a result, I carried on working overtime to get the orders out. I am now fully vaccinated. In what way does this make me immensely entitled?

I think @echt was speaking tongue in cheek.

Exactly @Binnaggy I think the younger generation are more miffed to see gold plated pensions and rolls Royce NHS treatment that they no will not be available for them when they finally get to retire at a much later age than current retirees.

i think its unfair that England gets less tax revenue per head than the other nations - hence things that are free such as prescriptions we cant have.

I dont see why a 60 year old should get free ones though - should be introduced at pension age

When I turned 60 and became entitled to free prescriptions I felt embarrassed as we were both still working and on a good income. We lived rurally and our prescriptions came through the GP's dispensary and they would not allow us to pay.

I agree that prescription charges should be paid up to state pension age with exemptions for those on a low income.

@SmokeyDevil Scotland is not sending people to English hospitals because they can’t cope.

NHS as a whole is suffering but wait list times in Scotland are lower than England cos you know, smaller population. Paid prescription does not equate to lower hospital wait times.

This constant race to the bottom is extremely tiresome.

The prepayment certificate does mean that no-one should be paying more than about a tenner....you can pay for it monthly. Obviously the older you are, the more likely you are to need repeats, (statins and antihypertensives spring to mind) but seeing as over 60s are more likely to have paid off their mortgage and/or are no longer supporting children, it's not unaffordable.

I don't pay prescription fees. I'm medically exempt, due to an underactive thyroid. Obviously I'm going to take the free prescriptions but if they said to me tomorrow that my thyroxine will be free but anything else I'd need to pay for I'd be ok with that.

@LemonRoses

I cannot see any reason to not charge over sixties who are on good incomes. I despise the Tories but a working sixty year old is probably better off than a younger person.

Since when are all over 60s on 'good incomes?!' My Mum survives on £400pm despite working full time all her life! There was no 'pension contribution' when she was your age!

@itsasin77

When I know of somebody who has never worked a day in her life, has a free home (not council or HA), has her pension, pension credit, private pension, council tax paid for yet is a health hypochondriac and has £100s worth or prescriptions a week, then yes bring this on! It makes me sick the money being wasted on her getting free medication for Made up this, that abs the other for years and years and just gets tablets chucked at her! Even stomach tablets, headache tablets, shampoos, leg shaking etc name it she has a prescription for it. May make the likes of these people think twice if they have to pay for it. She is not financially poor in any way shape or form, and has never paid into the system. So to me, she should pay!!

Shampoos are no longer prescribed. Where is your medical degree from? You KNOW for FACT that she has no genuine health issues do you?

You should be ashamed of yourself

@Binnaggy

This is perfectly sensible. People over 60 get so many financial advantages for no good reason. When was the last time you met a 60 year old who wasn’t better off that a 20 year old? I would also scrap free public transport for over 60s.

My mother! Worked full time all her life (so did my dad until he died) to pay off their mortgage, only for her employer to do some dodgy swerve with her pension. She's now struggling to survive & pay bills on £400pm state pension. Not entitled to pension credit for some bizarre reason.

Get your facts right and stop stereotyping

@stonebrambleboy

Once they raised the pension age it was inevitable that prescriptions charges were next.

Well yes.

I'm 60+, working, and earning more than I've earned previously. Plus my family is grown up and earning themselves.
Why shouldn't I pay for my prescriptions?

@Boredmotherofone in your outrage the point @echt was making seems to have sailed over your head.

And @LemonRoses never said all over 60s were on good incomes either.

@itsasin77

Deceased husband who worked to the bone every day of his life and built the house also. Deceased husbands pension now getting paid to her. Not massive by any means, but still another income source as well as government pension. When I say never, ever worked I mean that! Not sure how also gets pension credit, but she does! So has in total £277 income every single week, bills come to £150 pcm (water, elec, phone, ins), £50 food per week. So tell Me why she couldn’t pay for her own medication that believe me when I say is a load of made up tosh!!! Why should us tax paying citizens pay for people like her!!! Who can more than pay for herself!

@itsasin77 you sound so bitter. This woman's husband worked every day of his life, so paid into the system. She stayed at home, ran the house presumably, and enabled him to work as he did.

You accuse her of "making up" her medical conditions which she is medicated for. Taking medication that's not needed would make her ill, so I doubt this is true. Doctors don't just dish pills out for no reason (although they can be a bit free with the anti-depressants when it comes to fobbing middle-aged women off).

£277 a week is not exactly the lap of luxury. £14,404.00 per year.

If we could allow people to opt out of the NHS and pay 20% less tax (what we pay for the NHS) I would support all these kinds of things. These new exemptions will not apply to me (age 59) because I have only needed a doctor for 7 minutes in 15 years so probably will not until my age 67 pension age anyway. We supposedly have a free NHS other than paying massive income taxes, until we don't. So much is paid for now. We have the worst of all possible worlds.

@rookiemere

Exactly *@Binnaggy* I think the younger generation are more miffed to see gold plated pensions and rolls Royce NHS treatment that they no will not be available for them when they finally get to retire at a much later age than current retirees.

Excuse me! Binnaggy misquoted me and twisted my words. I didn't say the younger generation were avoiding/evading tax; I said "who can blame the younger generation for thinking about" it. There is a social contract: if the Govt don't keep their side of the bargain then the population won't either. You can't base a taxation programme on "pay tax now based on a promise that I will break in the future".

it makes complete sense as we have an ageing population & more wealth in older generations.