Medical Exemption on Medicines

[WitchesCauldron]

I hold a medical exemption certificate for my Hypothyroidism medication which I am grateful for. I have a moderate, but decent salary and have never claimed any other benefits.
My question is what is the rationale for the entitlement of getting all my other medicines free of charge? Don't get me wrong I'm grateful, but in the last month I have received: Asthma meds, Antibiotics, some steroids/antihistamines for an allergic reaction, HRT and statins. All for free.
Surely with money being so tight in the NHS this policy needs looking at?
Alongside the free meds for over 65s. There's a lot of people who can avoid to pay for their drugs. Surely they should be expected to make a contribution?
I'd be interested to hear clinicians opinions too..

It’s the same for diabetics (& some others) on medication.
I can only assume that to process all the non related medication v just the medication you are entitled to for free would be an administrative nightmare and cost more than just giving the patients everything free.

Interesting thought- it must be costing a fortune.

As pp suggested it might be costing a fortune but, at least a few years ago when all prescriptions were free, it was considered that a means testing system would be more costly to run!!!!!
There is also an argument that for some people with chronic conditions which qualify they are more likely to suffer other health issues which might require medication.

It's because when the nhs was set up these illnesses were written in at the beginning as getting free prescriptions.

It's never been worth the hassle of changing the law particularly because if I recall correctly there are only five listed.

It's also 60 years and over. It's been discussed many times to increase it in line with the pension age but no government has the appetite to piss off that many older voters.

I get a medical exemption ( thyroid and Addisons) , frankly the NHS wastes so much money on other stuff I feel absolutely no guilt at all about getting my asthma meds etc for nothing . I’d go as far as to say the list of people who qualify for an exemption needs to be reviewed to bring in more diseases like asthma for example .

The worst thing we could do is open up a discussion of how to further reduce access to essential medication.

I believe the actual reason for making thyroid medication free was because women with the condition during pregnancy would have serious expensive effects upon their babies from very early on, before the usual point at which a pregnancy could be identified/confirmed or even suspected and by making everything free, they would be more likely to already be consistently taking it, would continue taking their thyroid medication throughout morning sickness (out of a secure habit), just as making all medications free for diabetics makes the worst of the awful complications less likely. So it's more cost effective to make all of them free. Same with prescriptions for pregnant women.

But open up the idea that access to those essential medications and all other necessary ones for those specified diseases/illnesses/conditions should be based upon income and the ability to potentially pay out £100 (I've gone into a doctor's or hospital not expecting anything and come out with ten items before now - before you could get a PPC on your phone whilst in the pharmacy queue, I wouldn't have had the money to start the PPC weeks in advance - or at all - never mind doing it just on the offchance of a new diagnosis)? A very, very bad idea.

It's a genii we do not want to let out. So if you're actually doing this is try and get the idea out there for political research, you can tell them that it's not an idea that they should touch.