To think blanket free prescriptions for over 60s NEED to end?

[Idratherbepaddleboarding]

I know this will be controversial but I popped to the doctors in my lunch break to collect my prescription and joined a longish queue. Everyone in front of me was over 60 and collecting huge bags of medications and I was the only one paying for any of it.

I don’t dispute that I should have to pay but often I can’t afford it which has led to me having to miss days of my medication, leaving me feeling very emotional and at times suicidal (medication is for depression). Perhaps if everyone who has over a certain income had to pay, they’d be able to lower the prescription charge for everyone or be able to afford the pay rises they say they can’t afford for nurses and junior doctors.

The killer was that every single one of the people in front of me got back into massive, brand new SUVs, one couple into a Range Rover and another into a Jaguar. If they can afford to own (and run!) cars like that, paying for a prescription would be a drop in the ocean for them. AIBU to think that free prescriptions should be limited to those in pension credit just like Universal Credit?

When DH’s grandad died, his mum and auntie shared out his collection of prescription paracetamol and ibuprofen (I know they should be returned to the pharmacy but they’d only have been destroyed and both are ex nurses so I guess they know what they’re doing). I’m not joking, there were boxes and boxes of the stuff, we didn’t buy painkillers for years and these will have cost the NHS a lot more than they would from the supermarket and weren’t even taken by the person that they were intended for! Surely paracetamol and ibuprofen should not be available on the NHS at all?

I really don’t want to bash the over 60s and it wouldn’t be a vote winner for politicians but surely we can’t afford to keep free prescriptions for those that can afford them?

Apologies for that shit formatting on my previous post. One day I'll get the hang of links!

“The average person on the average salary, in average health in the UK has had more out of the state than they have paid in by around the age of 70.”

Isnt that simply the predictable consequences of decades of low wages and an underfunded NHS leading to poverty, ill health and a declining healthy life expectancy?

“It is unsustainable.”
Quite, so why is the solution to make the barely managing sick (those who need medication) pay more instead of bringing back the higher tax rates for the well off (who tend to be in better health anyway because of their massive privilege)?

And it’s their own children and grandchildren getting screwed over by property prices, lack of funding for education, fees on uni etc

Why is that? The answer is clearly the young don’t vote - the over 60’s do - so who writes the manifesto aimed at the over 60’s

If you want things to change get the teens to vote.

I am on thyroxine tablets which I have free with an exemption certificate, but I pay for any other medications that i have needed. I didn't know the certificate covered everything. I don't mind as I can afford it. Yes I do think the system needs an overhaul.
I don't agree people had it better. There were no disability benefits, no awareness of autism or mental health problems, abuse in families wasn't taken seriously.

Well there’s an awareness of autism and mental health problems. Shame the services to support such diagnoses in both mental health services and education settings have run into the ground. No money to pay for nhs or teaching staff. Plenty for HS2, PPE and free prescriptions for the main voters

We are nowhere near ready for automation , we are becoming a poorer country by the day. We are becoming less attractive for immigrants , they won't want to come , wipe our bottoms and feed us because the pay is rubbish and we don't have enough money to pay the good wages. There isnt enough working people to pay tye higher taxes. Poland is predicted to overtake us our young people will be going over there to care for their elderly. We are sleep walking into becoming a poorer country.

I want my dc to be better off than me, many of the older gen couldn't give a fuck and shaft the young as much as they can their own descendents!!!

I'm watching a documentary about chimps and they collaborate better than humans !!!

Yes this. The current pensioners are the richest demographic in society yet are entitled as all fuck. Of course not all are rich but many more are than in younger generations. Why should they get free prescriptions?

I was born in 1960 so a late boomer. I do think younger generations have forgotten or are not aware of some of the facts:

1960 - no contraceptive pill - expected and forced adoption still rife in the 1960s

Sex Discrimination Act 1975 - no equality prior to that.

Until the early 80s the percentage taking O'Levels was minute compared to now - about 2% went to university.

In the 60s most families didn't have CH and many didn't have a bathroom.

Childrens' homes were commonplace.

Homosexuality was illegal in the 60s.

1970s - punitive rates of tax created a huge brain drain.

1970s threat of cold War and nuclear war

1980s - tax was still 60% at the higher rates.

Interest rates in the 80s were usually around 10% to 12%, peaking at 15% in 1990ish but inflation was quite low and pay increases no higher than that.

Foreign travel for ordinary people wasn't an expectation in the 50s/60s/70s.

Mental hospitals and asylums were still operating.

Not so rosy when facts are faced.

I don't understand the resentment for the boomers. Wealth will.trickle down, will it not? In a way that boomers couldn't have begun to dream of.

@Lapland123 @SueVineer dh and I will certainly never take out of the system what we have paid in. Our DC were privately educated, their university fees were paid so they have no debt, we don't exclusively use the NHS, DH pays for his mother's carers, we shall almost certainly pay for our own care if we need it. When DD was ill, the NHS (CAMHS) refused to support her, let alone diagnose or treat her - we paid.

What precisely makes you think people like us are as "entitled as fuck"?

As a woman who has worked from 20 to 63 so far with a 7 year break, I don't think I should get free prescriptions but I accept them because the state has given me absolutely diddly squat else.

Ventolin over the counter will mean some peoples asthma will not be properly managed. And asthma kills. Too easy to get another ventolin when maybe the frequency means you need something else instead.

And crap everything else health related.

Health check in England at certain ages? Not in Wales
Smooth vaccine roll out in England? Not in Wales, later too
Targets for appointments and actually able to get a GP appointment in England? Not in Wales....

This…. I take 8 a day prescribed, I can only buy 4 days max and I’m disabled so cannot get to the pharmacy easily. My boxes contain 100 tablets, I’d be happy to pay for them but I cannot buy that quantity.

Very surprising that anyone is being given a prescription for paracetamol, I thought that was one of the over-the-counter drugs that could not be prescribed.

My DF has chronic arthritis and needs painkillers. He also has codine prescribed which he very rarely gets filled as he hates the side effects. Other conditions receive painkillers on prescription.
He doesn’t get it for a headache.
Also he often(he’s a nightmare) is constantly running low. There is no over ordering in my DP’s household. Me and my DSis wouldn’t allow it.

As an older boomer, 70+, thank you for these reminders. Although DH and I haven’t been big earners, we worked, him from 15. Part time until his late 60s, even with poor health. When our DC were small we lived in a grotty rented terrace house with the only loo in the backyard. Early 70s, when women didn’t get NI credits for being SAHMs. When we couldn’t get loans without our husband’s say so.

Yet I take the same view as you. Our DC have been successful, our DGC are aspirational and hard working. Although they have far more affluent childhoods than their parents had, they don’t expect a free ride. The oldest is already working part time, whilst studying for A levels. The trickle down won’t make much material difference to the DC, but hopefully will help the grandkids with housing, or anything else they need. Unless expensive care rids us of our homes.

Paracetamol can be prescribed in certain circumstances especially if it is required daily for months or years. In most ICB’s any other prescribing of it is a no no.

@Treessquirrels it isn't so easy to pay. Before I was 60, I signed the back. Once 60 you no longer have to. I tried once to pay for a flu jab in Boots. I'd booked and paid for it on-line. At the pharmacy, they insisted on refunding it. I guess more questions are asked on audit if one tries to circumvent the rules!

Nail on the head there!

It didn't happen under Labour either!

My Dad (75) gets a mobility vehicle every 3 years because he is in receipt of an army disablement pension related to an injury from 1972 so you might see his fancy new car but that doesn’t mean he’s been flashing the cash in the showroom. He only found out that he was eligible about 7 years ago.

That’s a real shame. Not being able to pay if wanted to. My DP’s buy as much as they can over the counter.
If I needed repeats I would buy a year or 3 month pre payment certificate. Nobody seems to re complaining about that. That’s a bargain. Is £111.60 a year.
Also my DP’s left school at 14 years old and went to work a full time job!!
My poor DM wasn’t even allowed to take 11+ because her widowed mother couldn’t afford the uniform!

I used to have a pre-payment certificate that worked out at a tenner a month and covered all prescriptions. Have you got one, OP?
There are lots of ways we could cut costs in the NHS if we’re t down the route of deserving and undeserving ill and we’re prepared to let those who were overweight, smokers, alcoholic, infertile or old and chronically unwell and the rest just deal with the consequences.
But do you want to live in that sort of society?
Basing medical support on envy and prejudice isn’t reasonable.

And presumably OP ran to the door to watch each time one of the many people ahead of her in the long queue left the pharmacy. 🙄

As someone who is in between the boomers and the milleniials (generation X), I can understand some of the resentment. I think they are likely to be the first generation that are actually worse off than their parents and the lack of understanding of that by some boomers must grate. While interest rates were high in the 80s, houses were still more affordable than they are now. Some of the things you mention as being worse are partly down to the attitudes of the boomers and their parents (e.g. homosexuality, adoption) and actually something they could have controlled. The lack of equality for women wasn't good but it certainly benefited men. We have the threat of cold War and nuclear war now!

The trickledown effect is no compensation (even if it happens) either. People want to buy their own houses with their own earnings, as their parents did, not to be given things if their parents decide to or wait for their parents to die.

Some on here won't like that either-they think disabled people are getting free "fun" cars.