AIBU to think the disabled are the next target?

[Locutus2000]

The Guardian

Though Jeremy Hunt said the government was “not in a position” to contemplate a decrease in tax immediately, he said the welfare budget could be hit further down the line to foot the bill.

He told the Times that 100,000 people a year were “moving off work into benefits without any obligation to look for work” – a sign he said showed the system was not working.

The welfare system had to be a “mix of carrot and stick”, with more assistance required to help people find work, given there was “no shortage of jobs”, he added."

Funny how 'carrot and stick' always equates to 'more stick'.

No because I have an expensive house with lots of equity. I also have the self awareness to realise how tone deaf that is in such a thread. Hence why I wouldn’t mention it unless in return to your point. There are some real issue here and I have a vested interest in how we can make society more inclusive so everyone has a better future. It would be nice if pensioners didn’t make it all about them all the time. That’s all. It’s tone deaf.

A lot of these older people live in huge houses. As part of my job I go out to visit older people to fill out disability forms etc and there are a lot living in huge bungalows and four bed houses. However if / when they go into care, these houses do have to be sold to pay for their care. Also I was told recently that things are changing and people having paid carers at home will soon have a charge put against their house to cover those care costs wheras currently they are free and the equity in your home is not counted. So a lot of this equity will be covering care costs. I expect this is how the government are hoping to recuperate/ save some money as the social care bill is unsustainable too.

I have numerous disabilities and long term health conditions but manage to work full time with flexible working conditions and help from ‘access to work’
However I am worried about the current push to remove or change drastically the work capacity assessment which assesses whether people are fit for work, fit for work related activity or are unfit for even work related activity - for anyone genuinely interested there is a government consultation out about this at the moment with responses needed by end of October
I work for a charity who deals with disabled and ill people - I am frightened about the impact of this on the worst affected who are often powerless to help themselves or change things

I get rather tired of the assumption that all us old farts are Brexit-supporting Tories.

I'm 68, voted to remain (as did almost all my friends of comparable age) and have never voted Tory, and never will. Neither did my DPs, who would be in their 90s if they were still alive.

I'm still working and paying tax, too. My public sector pension of a bit over £225 a month (net of tax) and my state pension would be enough to get by on, but wouldn't leave much over for things like car and house repairs.

And when I need social care, I'll have to pay for it, and my house will be sold to raise the money.

I actually cost the state a lot less than my MIL, who worked for less than 20 years in her entire life, gets pension credit (only a couple of pounds a week less than the full state pension), has all her rent paid by housing benefit and her council tax covered in full.

I don't think it is tone deaf to point out that right now in some parts of the country people can be living in fairly modest homes that are worth an insane amount of money.

They may be millionaires on paper, but that is not the same as having millions in bank accounts. What do you want people to do, sell up and downsize to flats or smaller homes, thus making it even harder for first time buyers to get n the property ladder?

Bugger me. Here's the idiot me, disabled, public sector, over 66, and still working and paying a shed load of taxes (and don't forget pension contributions), when I'd be so much better living that life of luxury as a benefit claiming non- worker. So if those who are saying we're so well off could explain to me how that works, I'll immediately consider voting Tory, since according to so many here that's what I do. I really never realised voting Tory would be so good for me. Must have happened when I was busy working during the lockdown that was apparently organised for my benefit.

Also I was told recently that things are changing and people having paid carers at home will soon have a charge put against their house to cover those care costs wheras currently they are free and the equity in your home is not counted.

And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that but when Theresa May put it in her 2017 Manifesto it was immediately dubbed the Dementia Tax and was so vilified by the right wing press she had to do a U turn. I can’t see it making a reappearance anytime soon.

Yes, I remember that, Blossomtoes. I don't think it is such a bad thing either.

At home care costs aren't universally free, btw. If you have over a certain amount of capital, you pay towards the cost of carers.

Just for future reference babyroobs, care in the home is not universally free.

www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/care/paying-for-care/paying-for-homecare/

That is also to some extent an artefact of misogyny in medical care - women are held to a higher burden of proof for autoimmune, connective tissue diseases and associated injuries than men; it's only when I have repeated the 45 years of treatment for both, quoting medications, consultants and managed to get staff to actually look at my records that they shut the fuck up about fucking Fibro, as it's the default assumption (other than perimenopause) for a female describing pain - and there's no treatment other than 'live with it'. Unlike Autoimmune and Connective Tissues, where there are many medications and treatments that can help and even cause complete remission. And (ETA) uncontrolled inflammation also affects mood entirely independently of being as a response to pain or trauma/unhappiness - an informal diagnostic of that is where a steroid injection can resolve low mood and lability in a couple of hours. But you'd need to be able to access the hospital for a doctor or prescribing nurse specialist to find that one out.

I still get poked in the classic trigger points for Fibro pain first. I think the intention behind it (especially as it's often very aggressive poking) is to elicit a yelp of pain/surprise so they can immediately dismiss everything as the one diagnosis that has no particular treatment. However, because I'm expecting it, the conversation usually goes along the lines of

'Does that hurt?'

Not particularly because you're digging into a Fibro point. You need to go up to the hot and swollen bit where the ... tendon inserts into .... to find where it hurts'.

'What makes you think you've got anything wrong with you?'

45 years of DMARDs, Physio, Biologics, steroid pulses, significantly raised CRP and ESR, findings on X ray, ultrasound and MRI tend to contribute. And I do generally believe what Consultant Rheumatologists tell me. My current one is x at y hospital - perhaps they'd be happy to explain to you why they think I do?

(Yes, I know I'm being a dick to them at that point. But they're being a dick to me and deliberately inflicting pain with the intention of dismissing everything as the No Treatment Possible Fibro bucket at that point, so they've earned it).

So true about the misogyny in medicine

I was dismissed by GPs for 5 years before getting a diagnosis

The men in the group for my condition all tended to have been taken seriously far more quickly

Yep, I'm 67, never voted Tory, voted Remain, retired public sector worker, worked full time to ensure I got a pension, tried to provide for my retirement, ,still paying tax, husband died before he got 1 year of his state pension, thought that we had wasted opportunities for the various governments to actually fund pensions etc properly and apparently I am the cause of all ills.
BTW, the best thing we could do would be get rid of half the MP's , they cost us a fortune.

It isn’t really the thread for it to be honest. It’s not all about pensioners and defending their asset wealth. There is a background issue because of the state pension, sure. This is about how the disabled will have their benefits changed. The more pressing issue is how we make society more inclusive. That’s first, there aren’t enough people paying in to fund pensions. So cart before the horse.

Yes I think the ongoing trend of "you can be whatever you want to be, just follow your dreeeeams" is just idiocy when what most teens seem to want to be is a Tick Tock star, a footballer, a professional gamer etc. We can't all be those things, realistically. We push our kids through the system in a one-size-fits-all education to decide at 15 or 16 what they want to do for potentially the rest of their life, with very little chance to try out possibilities they didn't have in school (like plumbing, construction, engineering, probably loads more I can't think of). Loads of teens drop out, loads will have taken a course they would enjoy only to find there is no employment using it and they can't afford to move anywhere that does.

The sad fact is that many that don't manage to choose a profession they have an aptitude for will end up in zero hours contracts or working 12 hour shifts that grind your mental health down and wear you out so they end up with depression from the hopelessness of it all, anxiety disorders from filling in the right forms and trying to keep the bills paid when you don't know what your income is going to be the next week, burnout from dealing with neurodiversity in a workplace designed for maximum productivity and speed from all employees, and that's just some of the mental health issues that can and do happen. There are also physical disabilities that can be exacerbated by being in the wrong job or for too many hours, hypermobility being one which my own family have issues with.

What happens when people break down because they're pushed too far? They end up relying on the state. And whose fault was it they ended up there?

This kind of goes full circle doesn’t it? Trapped in a cycle where aspiration is crushed (one look at all the reports on the tax system will tell you that). Bettering yourself is seen as bad in the country, let’s throw stones at those people who end up in well paid jobs - pull everyone down.

Those people say fuck it and stop, then we end up in a bitter cycle of state dependency where most people are net takers. The youth are ‘paying in’ at some of the highest rates ever. Knowing that probably in 10 years they will need private healthcare, probably education for their children. They will never get the state pension and probably can’t buy a house. They should shut up though because they need to keep working to pay tax.

The whole state system is completely top heavy now and I don’t know how it can be fixed. I feel so sorry for the young coming out of education.

Yes I am aware of that. I was talking about value of a person's home being taken into account rather than just savings and income.

Income isn’t taken into account, just savings above £23,500 - which hasn’t gone up in over a decade.

It says right there in the Age Uk factsheet that income is taken into account.

OK, I’m wrong then, sorry. Neither of my parents had a financial assessment as they both exceeded the savings threshold.

So those all saying pensioners shouldn’t have the state state pension they’ve spent their whole lives paying into can we see some figures please. What are you suggesting pensioners have? Currently in my late 50s so interested to know how much is deemed ok because the figures I’m looking at for state pensions don’t look in any way excessive and I’d love to know how you expect those of us near retirement to survive in our retirement years with less.

I think the point that has been made is that these pensioners haven't been paying in to anywhere - they have been paying for previous pensioners and the financial burden of paying for the current pensioners cannot now be met from the current working population because there are not enough tax revenues coming in. It is no-ones fault except politicians who have failed to plan adequately. But in the longer term everyone will suffer. Of course there would be uproar if pensioners suddenly couldn't get a state pension or it became means tested or disability benefits for older people are cut or pension credit cut, but these are the difficult decisions that are going to have to be addressed.

It's actually a really scary situation. I really despair for my young adult kids. no prospect of owning a home, massive student debts and probably no chance of a state pension. The best hope is to strongly encourage starting paying into a private pension as early as possible and hope our home doesn't get all used up for care fees so we can leave them something.

I’m posting from the opposite end of the statistics to the majority here. My DD1 is registered blind and these are the employability statistics for blind people:

There is a significant employment gap between blind and partially sighted people and the general population. The employment rate is 76% in the general population, 51% amongst the disabled population excluding sight loss and 27% for people registered blind and partially sighted.

But pensioners will be then on less than the cut off for other benefits which they’d then be eligible for so how is not paying them the measly pension they’ve paid into for years going to help?

The political party that addresses them will commit electoral suicide. It was made crystal clear to May in 2017 so it will continue to be kicked into the long grass. Things will obviously improve dramatically in the next 20 years as the boomer generation dies.