Helping the government save money

[Samdelila]

I think free prescriptions for people with certain conditions should be means tested. What else could the government cut to save money?

No they can't. I'm on UC, I work but don't earn enough to live. I have a life long, life limiting condition that does not come under the free prescriptions. I cannot work, or even look after myself, without it. But I am not on enough UC to get it free. Make that make sense, especially when someone on ten times my income is getting every prescription free whether related to their condition or not.

I think you spectacularly missed the point that Mammabear was making there.

Of course no healthy and able-bodied person genuinely envies the serious life-limiting medical conditions and disabilities that many of us have; but they quite happily envy us for the money that is spent by the state to attempt to slightly mitigate the permanent everyday challenges that we go through because of them. Funny that, isn't it?

If the government offered to give everybody with a serious medical condition a free holiday to the seaside or unlimited Costa vouchers, I would completely agree with you; but these aren't pleasant things to have - they're essential lifesavers, many of which also come with unpleasant side-effects into the bargain.

They're all things that replace what you and most other people are privileged enough to already have. Properly working body parts are much, much, much better than needing to take drugs every day as a shadow of a replacement for their function when they don't work properly or at all.

This is the thin end of the wedge. If we're going to make higher earners pay for prescriptions, why not GP appointments? And if they ever need an ambulance and/or treatment in hospital, they can pay that themselves too instead of getting it on the NHS?

Why not make people who are high earners and also privileged enough to have no health problems beyond the occasional cold to pay an extra 'gratitude' tax, based on all of the money that they get to keep for themselves because they don't need to pay for loads of prescriptions for any serious lifelong condition that they're lucky enough not to have? Would that be fairer all around? Or would it be as ludicrous as begrudging people lifesaving drugs and treatments for ongoing serious illnesses?

Honestly, I think some people would gladly stand next to the wheelchair ramps to public buildings, angrily charging a toll to people daring to use it whom they believed 'could afford to pay it' - all the while paying no attention whatsoever to all of the able-bodied people freely using the stairs to get in.

I didn’t say high earners should pay for their prescriptions - I said everyone who can afford to pay for their prescriptions should do so.
This is not motivated by envy but by a desire to cut spending so that the country does not run out of money - which would adversely affect all of us but the disadvantaged most of all.

Probably at least one new IT system, , large workforce, significant upfront costs including hardware, networking, recruitment and other investment, creating a large negative cash flow for a long period of time. Diversion of a large amount of public funding from something else to get this going. You can’t do something like this in isolation, it needs to be part of a wider programme of overall change.

Do you realise how much medicine some people need? I can talk about type 1, for example. They need: pump, CGM, insulin, insulin pen, testing machine in case of CGM failure, glucose testing strips, ketone testing strips, needles, finger pricker, lancets, glucagon injection, glucagel. Granted, not all of those every month, particularly if on a pump, but they must have all this in working order/in date or they will very quickly end up in hospital or dead. That is a huge, huge cost to any family every month. And harder still where it is running in the family and you need 2 (or more) of everything. They also need to manage all illnesses as efficiently as possible which includes taking any other medication that is prescribed. It is tough. There are probably other illness that need just as much - I don't pretend to understand.

I'm sorry to hear that. I'm honestly not unsympathetic - I grew up on benefits due to my disabled DM. I think you absolutely should get free prescriptions. I know the system has a lot of quirks. I don't necessarily think that the person the OP describes shouldn't get help either, but I agree that the list of conditions with access to free prescriptions is very small. I was more being wary of the OPs assertion and wondering if she had specific 'undeserving' conditions in mind. I truly wish you all the best.

Out of interest OP, how do you feel about independent education? Do you think everybody that can afford to pay for their DC's education should pay for that? That would be an enormous cost saving.

I fund my child's education and therapies but feel demonised for doing so.

I think that education should be free for everyone (as it is) but I think people should be allowed to pay for education if they choose to do so.

Well in my post of 10:02 I told you about my experience of being given an exemption certificate as part of getting my cancer diagnosis, and your wish to "kickstart a discussion" clearly isn't strong enough to bother to engage with that post. At the time I had a reasonably paid job and would not have qualified for benefits but I certainly didn't have a magic money tree to rustle up a spare £115 for a prepayment certificate on that horrible dat. If you genuinely think a mum like me, in my 40s, should immediately on being given news like that either have to fork out a sum.of money like that or cope with the process of means-testing admin, whilst in mental freefall with no idea how long she will be capable of working, or how long she'll be alive - well there's something seriously wrong with your humanity and empathy.

I also made a suggestion for how the government coukd tackle and reduce a current expenditure of £66bn per year but you haven't bothered to respond to that either.

So I do not believe you actually want to kickstart a discussion, you just want to punish sick people for getting sick.

Illness is not a sin to be punished, nor a failing that wise people avoid. It doesn't matter whether someone is rich or poor, no one deserves to have to purchase access to their healthcare. Healthy people, whether rich or poor, don't deserve to keep more of their money than sick people in the same income bracket. 3 million people per year who don't qualify for an exemption certificate buy a prepayment certificate, which indicates that they need more than 12 prescriptions per year. Most people need fewer than 3 prescriptions per year. The government would get more money by abolishing all prescription charges for everyone, and raising taxes by £30 per year per person (£2.50 per month) so that these costs are shared by everyone rather than specifically being paid for by those who are most sick.

Here's another idea that would save huge amounts of government expenditure - pass a law that all the privately-owned rental properties where the landlords continually fail to meet their obligations to ensure the property is a healthy and safe place to live while charging extortionate rents - which cause high government expenditure on dealing with health issues from living in cold damp mouldy properties as well as pushing up expenditure on Housing Benefit - should be forfeit and taken over by social housing providers with no compensation to the exploitative former owners who so thoroughly failed to meet their obligations. These non-profit organisations can then sell some of the properties to developers to be fixed up and sold to First Time Buyers (with a clause in the title deeds that they must only be owned by single-property owner-occupiers for 20 years) and use the money to fix up the remainder to be rented to people who need to be in rented accommodation for any reason rather than buying at a fair and reasonable rent thus slashing the housing benefit bill by way more than your nasty let's-attack-ill-people idea.

People who pay for their prescriptions through pre payment do not pay the full cost of their medication. They pay a reduced amount. This system could be extended to diabetics.

People who pay for their prescriptions through pre payment do not pay the full cost of their medication. They pay a reduced amount. This system could be extended to diabetics.

And again, you are assuming that people’s circumstances are such that they are able to afford the prepayment when due. The problem comes for those who are struggling but don’t qualify for benefits - middle income earners. There are a lot of us out there.

At the end of the day OP, you started a crusade wishing to find ways to save the government money....I've mentioned how are you going to present your ideas to that actual government, as it seems to be so important to you. So, make an appointment at your next MP surgery, present them with your findings. Or run for local council. If you were serious about this you would probably not be using Mumsnet as your platform, you would be proactive about it. Personally, I think your research was woefully lacking when you started this post and many posters have highlighted real life issues that your 'we should/they should/ x y z demographic group should' theoretical solutions simply don't hold up against.

@CactusSwoonedEnding
”Here’s another idea that would save huge amounts of government expenditure - pass a law that all the privately-owned rental properties where the landlords continually fail to meet their obligations to ensure the property is a healthy and safe place to live while charging extortionate rents - which cause high government expenditure on dealing with health issues from living in cold damp mouldy properties as well as pushing up expenditure on Housing Benefit - should be forfeit and taken over by social housing providers with no compensation to the exploitative former owners who so thoroughly failed to meet their obligations.”

Perhaps if you used a few more full stops I would find it easier to interact with your posts? Having said which, private landlords who do not ensure their properties are healthy and safe should face penalties, yes.

I am on my local council. My local MP is beyond useless. I think my argument is solid.

You're an actual Councillor?

Yes.

Pulling someone up on punctuation (I could make perfect sense of their post) isn't going to help you.

Do you share your ideas with your council colleagues?

Yes, but these tend to be ideas about matters within our remit.

@Samdelila do you do know that means testing any benefit costs millions of pounds, don't you? You know, because actual people have to be employed to do the testing? And even if you could get a computer programme to do it, you'd still need actual people to handle the appeals, which would be many.

Quite often, benefits that rely on very few rules (state pension, for instance. Are you over a certain age and alive?) can be dealt with by computers so are relatively cheap to administer.

other rules like are a couple living together as a couple,or his he just a boyfriend that stays overnight on occasions, or, is the person's really incapable of doing what they say? Or are they over/under estimating their ability to function?

cheap benefits are those that are universal and have very few rules. Expensive ones are those that have many rules, some of which are very subjective.

I worked in and around the government benefit regime for 40 years. I know without a doubt, the fewer the rules, the cheaper it is to administer.

the more complex the rules (don't get me started on widows running starts and the rules around share fishermen, let alone 7th day Adventists) the more staff you need to administer the benefit.

That’s why I propose restricting free prescriptions to people who are already eligible for benefits - so they don’t have to be means tested specifically to qualify for free prescriptions.

That was tried with the Winter Fuel Allowance. Rather than means test it, it was just for people on Pension Credit.
The nation lost its mind.

But there will be people who are NOT on benefits who have lower disposable income than people who ARE on benefits.

Yes, because it meant that people on pension credit would have a higher income than people on the full new state pension.