To be sick of people saying everything should be means tested

[Neededanewuserhandle]

It's ignorant, ill-informed and shows a lack of consideration given to the costs and complexities. Just saying "x should be means tested" as if it's a magical answer is stupid.

I agree OP.

Means testing splits people into "people who pay" and "people who receive". Rather than viewing it as a system that people pay into according to their means and receive according to their needs.
Means testing means higher earners look at things and go "I'm paying for them to get that, and I have to pay to get it myself".
Free prescriptions is a great example. Child benefit. Travel passes for college age children. Student maintenance loans. The tapering of the personal allowance for high earners.

To people who say "but high earners don't need the help" - it's easy enough to adjust tax thresholds so it works out even. Especially if you get rid of the cost of all the means testing.

Therein lies the rub - it either gets spent on those people, or it gets spent trying to decide which people to give it to. That's why some benefits are just given to everyone - it's less costly to just hand it out than it is to try to work out who should and shouldn't get it.

Fixing that problem would involve first fixing a much larger issue - the fact that our government (any of them, of any political persuasion) is incapable of completing almost any large IT project within budget and on schedule. If they were to make a change like that, it would take longer than a single term and would likely get shelved by the next lot.

@Neededanewuserhandle - if you do include VAT then the figure drops out of the higher tax band. If you don't, then in the basis of income tax, you will not be a net contributor. The figures I could find were from 2017. I don't know the latest.

I'm not anti benefits but I do find it silly that people who declare themselves to be the squeezed middle and thus apparently supporting feckless scroungers are, in some cases, not contributing themselves.

I would agree except that I've lived in other countries where means testing works rather well.

In France healthcare fees are means tested so if you are unemployed or on benefits you don't pay anything, if you are low income you pay a token amount, if you are high income you pay more.

In Germany childcare is means tested so it's basically free for low or no income and then gradually more expensive as your income rises. We paid 40 euros a month for full-time childcare!

Both French healthcare and German childcare are a million times better than what we have in the UK right now (a free NHS that is breaking apart, and horrifically expensive childcare). So maybe means testing isn't such a bad idea BUT I think it works in those countries because even the richest people are not paying insane amounts (e.g. it's about 30 euros for a GP visit in France).

@Dontbelieveaword

🤔 just to clarify, do you personally hold the criteria for who is and isn’t allowed to leave a relationship? Or just who is/isn’t allowed to claim benefits if they do?
Or is it simply that I had the audacity to check out what I would get in advance of actually leaving? Mental that I would consider the financial impact to my small children (one of whom is disabled) over and above my own wish to leave 🤷‍♀️

I’d remind you that the first piece of advice given to any woman wanting to leave a relationship is generally to ‘check out how much you’d be entitled to’ and that there should be no shame or stigma in any woman doing that.

I was very shocked, and remain very shocked, that there was such little difference between what is perceived as a ‘comfortable professional’ income brings in to support a family vs benefits I’d receive as a single mum. It’s not what I expected. I’m not entirely sure that the government should be supporting anyone to that level if I’m honest, no. Thats not ‘bashing’ I fully support help being offered but the moment you question anything about the system you’re just screamed at about how horribly terrible you are 😬

Feel free to answer the question before sounding off.

I think international studies show that the uk health system is actually rated higher than both France and Germany's. (There was a thread on it with statistics.)

And a "why won't the elderly just die" thread.
As ever.

To be honest when the younger generation is facing not even having a state pension potentially, not being able to get on the housing ladder, unprecedentedly high rent and cost of living, giving lots of stuff for free constantly to one of the wealthiest generations is stupid.

Conversely when my MIL died her medicine cabinet was full of packets and packets of prescription medication. When we asked her carers why, we were told that she stopped taking most of them but the chemist had them on a repeat prescription and they were free so she kept collecting them.

Is this a TAAT about over-60s and free prescriptions by any chance?

Well that's just a bit fucking stupid tbh. Couldn't one grown adult involved have had the necessary conversation(s) to cancel them?

People only seem to have a problem with means-testing when it comes to older people 🙄

Of course they should be means tested. I think 6k in savings is too generous it should be 2k and up to 5k. You use your savings to get out of a tight spot, not tax payers money. The people who genuinely deserve benefits should be awarded more but there are too many cash in hand my husband doesn't live with me i'm saving for my kids or dogs piss takers.

Sshhh! Don't go saying the truth of the matter!

My MIL is a classic case. She looked at a single mother with several children and glibly said "I'm paying my taxes for that!". She didn't like it when I pointed out that she barely pays any tax at all. She gets state pension and a widow's pension from her husband's pension scheme, no income tax as it's all just below personal allowance. She has around £100k in savings, all in ISAs, so no income tax on the interest/dividends. She doesn't have a car, so no road tax, fuel duty, VAT on fuel/repairs etc - just uses her free bus pass and cadges lifts from us. She barely buys anything, so no VAT on most of the food she buys, no VAT on her Daily Mail, a bit of VAT on her telephone bill and 5% on her electric & gas (mostly covered by the winter fuel allowance she doesn't need), OK, VAT on clothes/shoes etc buy she hardly ever buys anything. It's not as if she "paid in" - she hadn't worked since having my OH in her 20's - just a SAHM relying on her hubbies wage and accumulating credits for state benefits using the "home responsibilities" protection for 16 years! She can still save a few hundred per month after costs which goes into her tax-free ISA. Yet, she's first to whinge when there's any suggestion of OAPs paying for prescriptions, means testing bus passes, etc., even though she can easily afford them, and that's someone on a very low income! She also burst a blood vessel when they took away her free TV licence (which she can afford to pay for!). Despite paying virtually nothing in tax, she still thinks she's personally paying for half the benefit claimants in our town!

Means testing costs money to do, even in this internet age. I think there are some things that should be, but not everything.

Therein lies the rub - it either gets spent on those people, or it gets spent trying to decide which people to give it to. That's why some benefits are just given to everyone - it's less costly to just hand it out than it is to try to work out who should and shouldn't get it.

The admin has already been done for pension credit which could be used as a qualifier for other benefits 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think the issue is, which things are means tested and which things aren’t.

Eg, it seems odd that child benefit is means tested (all at, and also that the thresholds haven’t changed since means testing came in), but benefits that apply to older people never are.

The problem I have with means testing is that whilst we would probably have too much coming in, because I am disabled we also have more going out as we have to cover more things. I have to have things like a gardener as I can no longer do it and dh is too busy running the house and we really need a cleaner too.

For us these aren't luxuries but necessities. I have other expenses and we really need to convert the bathroom due to me rather than want to.

I currently have 4 items on my monthly prescription that I have to have and have a monthly pre-prescription payment set up but it's another expense. Means testing only looks at income not outcomes and therefore I and many others wouldn't get any benefit.

My mum has just been means tested by the local council as has daily carers etc but is deemed to have too much income as dad set his pensions up to benefit her on his death. So yes she isn't on the breadline but is having to pay for it all out of dad's pension.

It's a whole mess when they look at means testing and don't have the time or man power to review each case as it deserves.

You'd think so, but when I do the repeat request and only tick the items I actually want, I still often get the entire list! I used to hand the list into the local pharmacy, so I never knew whether they ticked everything to make more profit out of dispensing more drugs, or whether it was the GP surgery lazily pressing the "tick all" box rather than ticking just what I asked for. Now I do it online directly with the GP surgery and still occasionally get the whole list, so it looks like the GP surgery who are the ones doing it (but then again, the GP partners now own the adjacent pharmacy so maybe they've told the admins to "tick all" so they make more profit from the prescriptions they generate!).

Same with OH with his cancer drug carrier bag - apparently no way to delete the drugs he never takes as it's a "package" on their system and there's no will within the oncology dept to change it!

Perhaps in the past but there is absolutely no way you can say the current NHS is better than the French and German systems, not when people are suffering and dying in such large numbers because they simply cannot access care.

It was just in the news that one in eight people are now using private healthcare in the UK, we are sleep walking into a de facto means testing where anyone who can afford to pay goes private, and everyone else has to put up with an NHS that's falling apart.

But that's entirely the point - you're disabled, but that doesn't automatically mean the Government should pick up the tab for things you can no longer do.
It's not the Government's fault you're disabled, so unless you pass the benchmark for help you shouldn't automatically get help with gardening / cleaning IMO.

Those who genuinely can't afford it will get additional benefits they can use for it, but those who can fund it don't need the Government to mow their lawn.

The Govt can "means test" when they want to, i.e. child benefit reductions when income over £50k or removal of free childcare on incomes over £100k.

Likewise all the exclusions they found time and admin money to put in place for the covid support which ended up excluding 3 million people on ridiculous, unfair and spurious grounds, which caused suicides, bankruptcies, etc., yet couldn't think of a way to stop fraudsters taking bounce back loans!

It's easy if you have back payments in benefits to have more than these amounts. Are you saying that claimants shouldn't be allowed to have enough money to cover themselves for things like appliances breaking down, car repairs, home maintenance & in this day & age in case of being sactioned? The £6k limit hasn't been increased in line with inflation for years, it would be more like £10k now, someone who gets in work benefits could easily have £2k in their bank at times when they have just been paid.

Just popped in to see if anyone had an answer yet ? 😀