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?

Tax (further) the things that are fucking up the world-

flights (extremely day tripping - wtaf)
alcohol
ultra processed food
cigarettes
vapes
data centres/cloud storage

it isn’t saving money it’s making money off the bad stuff

Of course I realise that. Was making the comparison about people banging on about others getting free meds that possibly keep them alive or that may keep serious illnesses at bay…..thus helping to mitigate greater costs later on.
its amazing when you point out to some the “freebies” that they conveniently forget about.

Never does when you suggest cutting benefits other than for the disabled and pensioners. There was a thread the other day on which people were not only suggesting means testing disability benefits, but making disabled people provide ‘receipts’ for all disability related expenditure. When someone pointed out that it was direct discrimination unless the same provision was made for all benefits, including child benefit, there were howls of indignation. Many people commenting on how to rein in disability benefits, without having the slightest understanding of why they are paid.

Disabled people - the freebie brigade ? Seriously ?

Yes, I don't know if it's still the case, but I know there was a time when the pill was free when used as a contraceptive, but if it was prescribed for its alternative use to combat severe acne, you had to pay. I don't know what the reckoning was if somebody had both severe acne AND wanted to use the pill as a contraceptive.

When people say that they usually mean on the backs of the most vulnerable. The attempt to means testing disability benefits WFA was lazy and bound to fail because it was back of the fag packet policy. Means testing is expensive to administer properly and the government aligned the payment cut with pension credit without thinking it through. There are many people just above the threshold for pension credit who would have lost out too and that’s the point. Many benefits are cut on a cliff edge as soon as you reach the threshold, instead of tapering.

Tax the shit out of Amazon and other websites that don’t pay any / very little in the uk. 2% wealth tax on the richest in society.

That would go a long way.

I can guarantee you that wouldn’t happen. Stoma supplies are horrendously expensive. I try to keep my own prescriptions to the absolute minimum and only order what I really need. Others who have multiple stomas such as ileostomy or combined urostomy and colostomy cost well in excess of £1000 a month. Ideas for pre payment for these specialist supplies have been floated before, but at a cost well in excess of £120 a year because of the costs involved. There would inevitably be people who couldn’t afford it. What are they supposed to do ?

I'm glad the more repugnant sentiments on this thread are being robustly challenged from some quarters. Some people really have drunk the Kool-Aid. Decades of austerity politics and low pay culture under the Tories and people are turning their vitriol more and more on the less fortunate (and the current govt that inherited this shitshow) instead of getting angry about what caused all this in the first place. Society really needs to wake up to itself.

Yes, and then, if those of us with underactive thyroid didn't qualify for free prescriptions, you'd also have the injustice of different prices for different doses.

If you're on, say 200 mcg, that's two packs of 100mcg and thus would be one item. If you were on 175mcg, that would be a pack of 100mcg, a pack of 50mcg and a pack of 25mcg - so that would be three items, for less overall medication!

If different doses form part of the prescription, I understood there was only one charge.

So people who could easily afford private school to educate their kids should be allowed the complete free choice as to whether they want to do so or get it completely free on the state without any hint of judgment; but people who need medications to stay alive and/or allow them to live a life a little more approaching that enjoyed without thinking twice about it by people who are lucky enough not to be disabled or have any serious medical conditions should have to pay for their medications?

How does that even compute in your thinking?!

Do you realise that, every single day, people have horrific accidents or devastating medical episodes out of the blue that leave them severely disabled for the rest of their lives. These 'lucky' people will then likely become members of your much-despised "freebie brigade".

Tomorrow, that could be you, one of your loved ones or absolutely anybody else. I sincerely hope for your sake that it isn't you; but if it were, would you like to think of other people looking at you with hatred and disgust until the day you die at what a freeloading parasitic burden on the nation's finances they perceive you to be?

Subsidised food and wine in the Houses of Parliament.

Thanks, I stand corrected. I suppose it's moot in that case, though, as they're automatically free anyway; but with other things like asthma inhalers, if you have both the blue and brown inhalers - which most people with asthma do, as they're two sides of the same coin - they could as two separate items and thus two charges.

Educating our children benefits the nation - and there are also benefits to everyone if the better resourced families use state schools.
If a pre payment prescription charge of approx £120 was applied to everyone on free prescriptions (who was not already on benefits) some savings would be made compared to where we stand today.
The charge could be paid in installments, helping the more needy, and would be the same for everyone; so as not to disincentivevise the wealthy.
We need to cut costs. Something has got to give.

Yes, now you come to mention it – what are your views on this, OP?

Society will wake up all right if the country runs out of money. Then we’ll discover which person was the most repugnant: the one who advocated spending with no thought for tomorrow or the one who tried to identify ways to help cut spending as painlessly as possible.

I don’t think MPs should benefit from subsidised food and wine.

Who on this thread has 'advocated spending with no thought for tomorrow'? Because I seem to have missed that particular post.

Well, that's something, at least.

That'll be you then obviously..

Refusing to acknowledge that asking people to buy pre payment certificates is worthy of consideration - and failing to come up with any other suggestions for how to save money - amounts to spending with no thought for tomorrow.

I don't understand the list of qualifying conditions for free prescriptions. Why drew the list up and why those specific illnesses?

I've got a life long chronic illness that I need to take medication to control it. It's not on the free prescription list so I have to pay.

I'm not quibbling because I have to pay. I've got a prepayment certificate so it's only a tenner a month. I'm just curious as to why some illnesses are deserving of free prescriptions and others are not.

There have been tonnes of better suggestions and explanations why targeting prescriptions is a weak idea. It’s not a race to the bottom and austerity and cuts is just one method. Demonising people in receipt of benefits is definitely favourable to certain sides of society. You have to ask why people would penalise and demonise those with the least instead of going after the people who can afford to pay in more. And not through prescriptions, through proper taxation and systems that better redistribute the wealth in this country.

The rich can already decide to pay for their prescriptions, not take free (crappy usually) laptops at universities and pay for their own healthcare and education. But even still removing free prescription from the top 1% is not going to generate much at all. And as has been said when you remove all incentives from people paying in, they become less inclined to pay in.