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?

But how do you determine if their illnesses are age-related? That's my point.

I’ll add it the unfairness that only drugs around when was written (late 60’s I think) are included and no mental health medication

scrolls through and notices OP desperately fishing for someone to ask if she's on benefits

so she can reply yes, but that she needs them.

Which we should all then interpret as her wanting more money in the pot for deserving people like her.

And turn it into a fight about who deserves what and whether fundamental principles like free healthcare should exist, illegal immigration etc.

Boring. Not biting.

This isn't the Government saving, it's making someone who is already paying a large amount of tax pay for live saving drugs... The NHS is supposed to be free at the point of use, it's a slippery slope if we start means testing.

Studies estimate that the government waste £200 billion annually in inefficiency in our operations, having worked in the public sector it's clear there are easy savings to make, such as paying £1000 a day for consultants, quangos etc.

You don’t. They just get free prescriptions?

I think there are plenty of places the government should go to save money before this!

Better to just scrap all free prescriptions. The annual prescription payment is currently a relatively small amount which most can afford. Perhaps there could be a reimbursement scheme for those on v low incomes.

How about all the health tourists who deliberately come into the uk and have millions of pounds of treatment and then bugger off without paying? Surely they should have their passports taken off them in the hospital and not given it back until they have paid their bill like the USA does?

I think patients should pay for their own food whilst in hospital. It is the National Health Service not National Canteen Service.

They’d need to vastly improve the food first

Does the prime minister have to live in a prime central London location? Put him up in a two bedroom flat in Slough and rent out Number 10 Downing Street as an AirBnB. That should equally save, and make, some money for the Treasury.

Rail is going to be nationalised anyway so it won't make a difference.

Make everyone in the uk pay for prescriptions, universities and care homes on an equal basis. No more free stuff being subsidised by the English.

Scotland pay more tax though than in England, The amount of extra tax paid by an higher earner in Scotland is far more than the benefit of free prescriptions.

The government has just handed the Americans an extra £3 billion pounds for drugs in the NHS because we have capitulated to the USA in trade agreements.

You would need to save countless prescription charges to come close to saving the government the amount of money they've just wasted by doing that.

We personally pay 4k extra tax in Scotland and in return get free prescriptions, tuition fees, nationalised water. Average water charge is 545 a year. My friend in Cornwall pays 150 a month! Council tax is on average 500 less a year. All these things are worth more than an extra 4k, and 55% of Scottish people pay less tax, so only those with higher incomes pay more.

You don't need to means test prescriptions, you need a government that works properly so you dont have to.

So what's your point...?! Person paying high taxes into system gets free prescriptions for life condition. I see absolutely no issue here whatsoever. This is a non-issue!

Contradicting yourself here...........

Kirsty Allslop, that you?

Oh dear, oh dear. My husband is over 60 and has life conditions caused by military service and two strokes. He gets his medication for free....gasp.... I work very hard as well as caring for him, pay taxes obviously and am not entitled to free prescriptions. Before his health deteriorated he had worked from 15 to 58 including 11 years service. So I will happily continue to collect his "free" prescriptions that are helping to keep him alive in my short lunch break from work just after I make my midday care call to him at home. When you've lived those kind of experiences you can trot out your ideas of what you think everyone else should be doing and what they're entitled to.

Don't think you understand how our transport system works. Network rail is government owned, at the moment franchises are being taken back under government ownership. South western trains for example are now government owned, GWR will be by the summer along with lots of others.

Ignoring that fact, some of the delays are caused by infrastructure issues, in fact the Major are. The only delays that wouldn't be caused by the government are train faults or lack of personal to run a train.

That's why the Government pay for delays.

to be fair, that's not what the public are told all the time on the platform, so you can hardly blame people for misunderstanding if what you're saying is true that the majority of delays are because if network rail.

It always seems to be problems of train company's stuff:

• lack of train crew
• doors not working
• problem with the brakes
• disruptive passenger on a train
• a previously delated train (for any of the above reasons)

Id second this. Medication for your life long condition but you hurt you back for example, you pay for the short term painkillers.

The list of conditions that provide exemption is not huge:

• a permanent fistula (for example, caecostomy, colostomy, laryngostomy or ileostomy) which needs continuous surgical dressing or an appliance
• a form of hypoadrenalism (for example, Addison’s Disease) for which specific substitution therapy is essential
• diabetes insipidus and other forms of hypopituitarism
• diabetes mellitus, except where treatment is by diet alone
• hypoparathyroidism
• myasthenia gravis
• myxoedema (that is, hypothyroidism which needs thyroid hormone replacement)
• epilepsy which needs continuous anticonvulsive therapy
• a continuing physical disability which means you cannot go out without the help of another person
• cancer and are undergoing treatment for either:
• cancer
• the effects of cancer
• the effects of cancer treatment

I doubt OP has even heard of Beveridge. Strongly suspect she's only started this thread to get people riled.

Shame you felt the need to following up your somewhat sensible first sentence by being ignorant and goady in your second.