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?

The most she would likely pay in is the cost of a prescription pre payment certificate, which is about £140 a year. I dint really begrudge her that, based on how much she must be putting into the system every year.

Also, many conditions come with additional costs - for example my daughter is coeliac and therefore gets bread on prescription. But we have to pay on average triple for her pasta, cakes, biscuits, cereal etc. The free prescription for many people only covers a really small proportion of the additional costs of their condition, so I definitely don't begrudge it.

For it to be worth means testing, it would need to raise more than it costs as an overall policy (not per person) as only a proportion would be eligible to pay.

Measures should of course be taken to help people be healthier, but we can also stop handing out free prescriptions to people who don’t need them. The two things are not mutually exclusive.

You can’t afford not to.
Or else those people may all start voting for parties that will happily take away the basic principles of the NHS - free at the point of use for all - and make a pay per use system that the Something for Something demographic can still easily afford but the Something for Nothing demographic won’t be able to. But it’ll be too late by then, and there won’t be an alternative for them anymore.

(And they aren’t ‘freebies’ if your tax bill is higher than most people’s income)

On £200k a year she’s not getting much back for the £75k a year she pays in tax. No tax free allowance, no personal savings allowance, no free childcare, no child benefit etc. I don’t begrudge her free prescriptions.

Surely you/the dr can just request the prescription every 6 weeks rather than every month?

Your response bears no relation to the question. So I’ll assume that you don’t understand the founding principle.

Make her pay for prescriptions but remove the tax cliff edges

@taxguru I am sorry to read about your dh. I agree that is completely shocking re the meds!

@Samdelila we can’t just keeping targeting income, there is too much disparity

Paying more in taxes than most people earn in a year and you want to get £9.90 out of them for their medical condition? You're the problem.

Her taxes will more than cover the £100 a year she’s saving by not having to buy a pre-payment certificate.

Just because a condition leads to additional costs doesn’t mean people should get free prescriptions that they don’t need. And I don’t believe means testing is as complicated as you think. We know which people haven’t got enough to live on - they’re already in receipt of benefits.

care in the home needs to include housing as well.

Its irrelevant.

It would save the country a large fortune just to stop paying benefits and give out free drugs instead.

Wow. Such waste! It’s shocking.

@Samdelila is it just prescriptions you're focusing on or do you have other ideas? Wondering as you ignored @Boudy about the House of Lords.

I would say these people could afford their own food and drink without subsidy.

Or let's turn it on it's head. You can only have services and treatment up to the amount you contribute in tax.

So this lady would be allowed around £76k in services and treatment on the NHS for the year. Once you hit your contribution level you have to pay for your services and treatment.

Seeing as most of us don't contribute in the system as much as we take out this will save loads of money. Some of us will barely get our bins emptied.

Wiithout people who have a lot of money there would be no ‘freebies’, stopping rich people having some medication free isn’t going to make a dent in the problem, let alone solve it.

Ha ha - I missed that one. I’m interested to hear everyone’s ideas about how we can save money.

I agree.

I pay for a pre payment prescription so at most she has saved about £114 for the year.

We shouldn’t punish ill people so I would like to see better prescribing to avoid wasted medication which I suspect costs a lot more.

So you don’t think it’s worth doing, because it doesn’t save enough? How much money would we have to give people who already have plenty before you’d say enough is enough?

I would see better prescribing, less waste and an end to unneeded free prescriptions.

I would start by closing tax loopholes to prevent tax avoidance.
Cap private rents to 10% above the cost of mortgage + maintenance
extra taxes on Airbnb income, and empty homes

I would use the extra money to build more social housing and invest in social and health care.