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?

That didn't happen. People got at least a few years' notice, the increase in state pension ages was first announced about 20 years ago.

Quite right. It's the fault of the other political parties for not being a viable alternative.

“But (I used to work in NHS) it is time that ibroprufen, aspirin and paracetamol are not issued under expensive prescription in UK when they cost so little in supermarkets. Ridiculous waste of money”

Not a waste of money to the NHS- it’s actually how they get a bit back.

The NHS is buying the ibuprofen and paracetamol for pennies. The prescription price of £9.35 has no link to the actual cost of the medicine itself. You could be paying £9.35 for 35p worth of ibuprofen or £9.35 for £1250 worth of cancer medication.

No, the whole point of this thread is free prescriptions, so the patient is paying nothing, hence why they want a prescription for drugs they could buy over the counter. As for cancer patients, they're eligible for free prescriptions regardless of age by virtue of having cancer!

@Nordicrain in my case I don't feel guilty- still both working, so I definitely am paying. Personally I'm with you on free prescriptions, I'm pro free school dinners too , free university tuition and free after school care and holiday clubs plus 100% free accessible and available dentistry . I also don't believe in council tax- I believe in councils being properly funded from taxation. having lived in Denmark and looked at their model , I think we could up basic tax to 32% but not payable until £15000 . Put in lots of things that would benefit all but the very wealthy and many people would be no worse off overall but with services and costs covered that would benefit health , wellbeing and family care. I do partly understand the frustration /resentment too of high earners that they appear to be getting very little for the vast amounts of tax paid whereas their are whole swathes of people who are perfectly capable -but have put very little into the system for whatever reason and are all take and it's these people that mean that those who really deserve more support due to lack of being able to earn a living at all are jumping through hoops in many cases to get any help.

Well, the problem is people in England giving the Tories a majority again and again. The rest of the UK seem to find other parties a viable alternative.

You seem unaware of what actually happened, e.g. the second change, the patchy or non-existent notification. I've heard of women who had no notification, got to retirement & found they had no pension. There are instances of women being given the wrong information when they enquired about their retirement age. It's no good relying on what should have happened in some imagined ideal: what actually happened was something else entirely.

I myself had notification of the first increase & was expecting it. Then there was a second increase, which I had no direct notification of.

And this all begs the question of what women, especially low-paid women, were supposed to do when given 'a few years' notice' (or less) of the removal of their state pension for 3-6 years. It was too late to adjust their financial arrangements, or impossible for them to make other provision.

I dunno I guess they could just keep working for those extra years like everyone else is expected to.

It does though. I don't blame the individuals, they paid what they were told to pay. But there is no denying the current generation is funding that with far less benefits from what they are paying in. A huge portion of our society's expenses today is pensions, care and health (much of which is old people). Old people are - rightly - getting that for free, but it's an increasing financial burden as the older population grows which means the younger generations - the ones footing the bill, are getting less and less. Millenials are the first generation more likely to be less well off than their parents. State "benefits" are being eroded as an ever increasing speed and Boomers more or less enjoyed the last free ride on the state and are now absolutely hammering the state budget with their needs. As I said, it's not the individuals fault, but you must be able to understand why it feels unfair that they go on enjoying that free ride while the rest of us look forward to basically nothing while we pay for it.

So you'll be fine when you reach your expected retirement age & find you have to keep going for another 6 years? And younger adults won't mind all the old people 'hogging all the jobs' so they can't get a start in life?

How about we all try to have a little humanity & understanding?

Funny, there are apparently no excuses & no sympathy for people who lived all their lives with retirement ages set in stone, only find them changed when they got to retirement age, while those who retired before them got to do it at the much earlier age.

But it's terrible when today's young adults can't buy their own homes, like all those who came before them did. Sauce for the goose & all that.

Wealthy retired pensioners, and many not-so-wealthy, are still paying into the 'pot' via income tax.

Plus many will have been working and paying NICs since they were 16, too, so will have paid a lot of years' NIC contributions by the time they retire.

Really, this sort of blaming of the older generations is both misplaced and ignorant.

Really? Which ones? Leaving aside the Labour Party (as we all must, sadly, these days), which other non-regional parties are viable?

We have all had our retirement ages pushed back though. And I don't believe that anyone didn't know it was happening until they retired with no pension. I can understand why you're pissed not to get something you thought you would but really it never made any sense for women to retire at 60 when men didn't get to until 65 considering that women live longer. And if you retire at 60 and live till 96 (like my granny did) then you are receiving pension for 36 years. How is that sustainable? Especially when the pool of people paying for that pension will get less benefits when they come to retire themselves. The fact is although your generation obviously paid for the pensions of the generation before, that was a much smaller number of people so the costs to you were much lower. That's not your fault, but it's not ours either.

Says a pensioner more than happy to collect all their freebees that noone else paying income tax gets, despite - self admittedly - earning plenty?

Look, I am for these benefits applying to everyone. Noone should have to choose between food and medicine. But if there should be an income limit on eligibiity then I just am not sure I see all these pensions on final salary pensions, with their mortgages paid off being front of the line for support while everyone else struggles to pay for it. That's all I am saying.

Completely anecdontally, the people i know who got caught out by this were people who "retired" early/ chose to be housewives and thought well, i'll only have to cover 5 years till my pension.

Which pensioner is saying that? If you mean me, you're wrong - I'm not retirement age yet!

Shall we do away with free prescriptions for children too?

I take your point, Rainy. But on the specific topic of the WASPI women, yes, there were women who didn't know what was going on &/or who were the victims of the second change (& many people of all ages, today, still seem to be unaware that that second change happened).

No @Oldnproud what is ignorant is the view that having worked since you were 16 you should be "entitled" to lots of freebies. Especially before you've even retired! The money isn't there who is supposed to pay for that? Oh right, yeah the younger generation. Who already can't afford to buy property, or pay the huge rents required, who have seen their wages not increase since about 2008 (even though pensions have) and likely won't get any of these benefits themselves when they retire.
Did you watch that video posted earlier by a PP? It was a talk at the royal society. One of the points was that 20% of baby boomers also own a second property. Do you think ANY millennials do? But they should fund the free prescriptions for that same group no matter how much money they have in the bank, just because they were lucky enough to make it to 60?

no, we should give them to everyone.

And children have no money so it's really not a fair comparison! If you want to pay children a pension then sure, they can pay for their prescriptions too.

Yes, I agree with you there.

If everyone got free prescriptions that would be fair I guess but nonsensical, with waiting lists the way they are, no ambulances available, nurses and doctors striking due to pay, people in corridors. I could go on. Surely this is where the money to the NHS needs to be spent? Not on paying for meds for people who can afford to pay for their own?

I’d happily take a lower pension and higher wages now. I’m at the bottom of the civil service so and at the coal face so to speak rather than a nice cushy office job.

It did happen to the Waspi women. The first raise, to gradually phase in a move from 60 to 65 for women, was announced with a reasonable amount of time. But the second raise was a rushed thing, and that’s where the unfairness was.