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?

If you want to get a pension then support pensions, I think if the government can get enough people moaning about it then that will be very dangerous for the future of pensions. Self fulfilling prophecies.

Can you?
My pharmacy don't ask because my medication is on the list as being exempt so it's all done for me. They never ask.

Same when I went in 1981. Parents had to pay my living costs and those of two other siblings who went to uni after me. However the world and the universe got its revenge on us as 'evil boomers' (albeit only just boomers!) when we had to put our own three kids through uni.

Also still have them all living at home... Elder two have had to come home post uni. One in permanent FT career job, saving up to buy a home. Second, jobhunting post-graduation in chosen field. Youngest - in uni. So now at 60, we are fully supporting and very nearly fully supporting, three adult children.

Work with a colleague same age as me, only they went straight into work while I was at uni, and so they now have 9 more years' pensionable service than I do... then there were the 'contracted out' years.... Didn't start to pay into a pension until I was 28.

Paid through the nose for childcare for 18 years - so still paying a mortgage, albeit relatively small. When I graduated, I could have expected to have been retired already. Now I have to carry on for another 7 years.

When we bought our first house I was between jobs having just moved country and the mortgage adviser told us we couldn't afford it. Fortunately the mortgage company took us on. TG we decided not to buy a flat in London, because we'd probably still be saddled with the debt, as mortgage rates soared to 15%!

We did way more in terms of recycling back then, milk bottles/soft drinks, didn't use plastic bags, travelled much less and less far afield. There was much less car ownership. Etc etc. Yet somehow this generation gets the blame for everything that's wrong in the world.

As for that pipsqueak who suggested we "earn respect", I have fucking earned every stripe of that respect!!! It's as though we all as individuals chose to trash the world for future generations ie our own children and grandchildren???! Really??? Wind your neck in. We're all just doing our best in an imperfect world!

100%.

Too stupid to see they're being worked as puppets to cover for the actual culprits!

I'm not sure that you can if the prescription states that you are over 60. The pharmacy probably wouldn't want to take the money, as they could be later accused of taking it inappropriately/fraud.

I am over 60 and was amazed when I was told I didn't have to pay. I think it should be in line with retirement age.

Hertfordshire joined senior school late 70s Took Olevels mid 80s.
Husband in Kent area. The same but he started senior 1970

Ps.
O levels introduced 1951
CSEs in 1965.

Possibly…. it’s worth looking into if people want to pay regardless.
My dh paid for his meds for a year and a half after reaching 60 as he didn’t know they were free.
Boots didn’t have a problem taking his money

I too didn't know:-). It was only when I had to have antibiotics for a bad chest infection that I was told by a pharmacist, think I was about 62 at the time.

My mother could be a bit like that and she never worked outside the home after marrying. It was annoying. However she had her good points and was always helpful so can't really complain.

Now I am elderly I would not dream of trying to pull rank in that way, and I did always work. I like young people - after all I used to be one!

Maybe it has always been a common theme, throughout history, people saying, "When we were young we didn't...", and "Young people nowadays...". It comes across sometimes in literature and in period dramas. There is nothing new under the sun :).

Everyone did the 11+ when I was a child. Those who didn't do so well and went on to a comp (comps were very new and shiny then, I wanted to go to one which turned out to be flagship, but my mother wouldn't let me), or a secondary modern, were able to do 'O' levels. CSEs came later, after I had left school and after that, GCSEs.

I agree. It's not just about us, the ideal is that anyone and everyone can benefit from taxation. Some will have greater needs than others and it is incumbent on us all to take care of those more vulnerable. Let's face it, none of us know how well we will be in later life.

Surely most of the home owners and comfortably-off people will leave their goods and money to their children or nearest relatives, thus helping the next generation. A lot will help while they are still alive!

From this thread I have gathered than many do not realise that pensioners still pay tax if their income is over £12,570 pa.

"boomers" on the whole didn't need a degree for the average job though. Sure they did for some but plenty of jobs you could get with decent o levels, so it wasn't the necessity then that it is now.

I lived in an 11 plus area. There were only grammar schools and secondary moderns. No comprehensives. 15% went to a grammar school, and 5% went to university. The student grant was means tested on our parents income. I remember friends, whose parents were assessed to contribute and didn’t.

Those who went to secondary moderns spent far more time on cookery, woodwork, sewing, PE, etc than the grammar schools; and they mostly did CSEs. Only a grade 1 counted as a grade 6 O level. I don’t know where the present generation get the idea, the 85% who went to secondary moderns were somehow luckier and pulled the ladder up behind them?

As for maternity leave, I had not been with my employer 2 years, when I had DS - I was only entitled to 6 weeks maternity leave, after he was born and my employer told me, they expected me back at 6 weeks.

TBH, I find it ridiculous to target free prescriptions for the over 60s, which must be immaterial in the context of the tax take, for reform of the tax/benefit system. I’d amalgamate income tax with NI and charge it on all income, earned or unearned, including for people over retirement age.

Oh come on let's not pretend all jobs suddenly need their employees to have degrees, it's cause and effect!

No of course they don't need them on the whole. They expect them though. My DH wanted to hire someone the othe day for a clerical role but was vetoed because the guy didn't have a degree. He had experience though and really how would a history degree (say) help someone do admin?

Nail on the head. Taxes aren't a kind of savings scheme. Higher earners pay more tax, Lower earners need support. In the middle, taxes pay for infrastructure, health, education, security, etc.

Re inheritance, yes those owning their own house and other wealth will usually pass to next generation, but that just increases the rich/poor gap as those who don't own their home have nothing to pass on, so their children will probably never be able to afford a home with house price inflation etc out of control in proportion to income. A few decades ago, people with "normal/average paid" jobs could afford to buy a house - now in lots of areas, that's simply no longer possible. So the "rich" get richer (due to inheritance) the poor stay poor. That's a classic example of boomers pulling up the drawbridge behind them. It's alright for them and their families, but sod the children who don't have parents with their own houses!

Yes, pensioners pay tax over £12.5k, that's no secret, but they don't pay any NIC, which is a tax that has been raised a number of times over the past couple of decades so the politicians can claim they've not increased income tax! More tax revenue has been needed, but pensioners have been sheltered because the tax raising burden has been NIC, not income tax, i.e. a tax on workers, nice! Also the £12.5k personal allowance has risen (doubled) over the past decade far in advance of inflation, so lots of lower income pensioners have been taken out of income tax - their pensions have risen, but the tax free personal allowance has risen more, meaning some of those who used to pay income tax, no longer pay it! Nice!

I think chemists know your date of birth if you use them regularly as such data will be on their database. Maybe it's part of the data "pinged" by the GP surgery if it's a regular prescription rather than an occasional/one-off paper one? I can't remember last having a paper one, but perhaps you're date of birth is printed on the top along with your name and NHS number or perhaps the pharmacy get it off your NHS number database? The one I use know mine because we get texts "pinged" from them for age-related reminders such as flu jabs, etc. So if the system says you're over 60, they won't even ask, likewise with a exemption certificate, you're not asked to show it every time, it's flagged on the system, so you show it once and then you're not asked again, until it's run out, and then they ask to see the new one, which they log onto the system and don't ask again! I suppose it's different if you're not a regular user and use random pharmacies for occasional prescriptions?

As for the earlier poster mentioning fraud, etc., the chemist get the same money whether there's a patient charge or not. If they charge the patient the tenner or so, that same sum simply gets deducted from the amount paid to the pharmacy by the NHS. No fraud involved, pharmacy is no better off either way - the only difference is who pays the tenner!

I wonder if the next generation along will in the future blame all that is wrong on those of you who (in their young eyes and minds), insisted on going to university when you couldn't afford it, borrowing money to do it, in the form of student loans, most of which never got paid back. Will they angrily claim that was 'free' money that you took, if you didn't pay it back?
Will they be crying out that it's so unfair that you lumbered them with the financial repercussions of that, and that its also your fault that they won't even be considered for a simple clerical role without a degree because your generation(s) reinforced that expectation by choosing going to uni in such large numbers?

Quite possibly - especially if the Government of their day, aided by the media, spoon-feeds them that narrative.

And they'll all complain they've got a newly qualified student with no life experience because they've never had a job. It's madness.

Yes, and in those days, there were adult education colleges which did lots of courses, including O and A levels, either daytime or evening classes, so those who went to "secondary moderns" could still get their O and A levels at a local college of FE (maybe alongside a day job). Education didn't end at aged 16, and it's simply not true that those who "failed" the 11+ were destined to not having opportunities for O and A levels, Uni, etc. The routes were still there, just took a little longer. I left school aged 16 without a single CSE nor O level, but got O and A levels at college by evening classes and went onto become a qualified chartered accountant. Alternative routes took a little longer, but they were open and available to most people. It's a travesty that we lost the adult education as it used to be.

@RosesAndHellebores @Oldnproud

In 1978 when I went to university a miniscule percentage of people went. About 3% excluding the polys which pushed it to five. There is simply no way 30% to 40% of young people could go to uni on a fully funded basis. Perhaps we should go back to the 70s with most people leaving school with a handful of CSEs at 16

How come every single country in Europe can send their young folk to Uni and Further Education for approx £1,000 per year, some countries are cheaper still.

Why is the UK treating young people so badly?

The UK has the most expensive Tuition fees in the world and we charge very high interest rates on these loans and have removed the mtce grant too, adding that to the amounts borrowed.

We also are about average for the numbers of young people who go onto to Uni (in the EU) & many Asian countries send far more, so the justification for high tuition fees isn't on the numbers.

People go on about Labours PFI but the amounts that will be lost on non repayment of students loans is going to dwarf that.

Well the truth of the matter is that those born after 1994 or so will have come of age at a time when a degree was more or less compulsory if they wanted to do anything other than a manual or minimum wage job, and the fees had been raised to £9,000 a year by a government none of them voted for (because they were at most 16 at the time), by a combination of (a) Boomers who voted Tory, and (b) Millennials who voted Lib Dem in large part for their pledge to abolish tuition fees and then were immediately betrayed.

If your point is that future generations may not understand the nuance of that though, you're probably right.

Lots of lower income working people benefit from the increase in the personal allowance and the same with the raising of when NIC starts being paid.