Seven medals but now they want my benefits.

[carernotasaint]

blacktrianglecampaign.org/2012/08/28/seven-medals-but-now-the-tories-want-my-benefits-british-paralympic-gold-medalist-tara-flood-speaks-out/

I know people at both ends of the scale too, and I agree that some need the money more than others, obviously.

But I believe it is wrong to take 50% of what anyone earns, it's just completely unfair.

I don't agree with all of the cuts too, but I don't think benefits should be funded by a 50% tax rate. There are other, less essential things that could be cut. I get shouted down on here when I say I think things like libraries should be cut in order to provide better social services, because people make use of them. And while I understand that I just cannot see why people would think its fair to take 50% of one persons earnings to enable someone else to have free Internet at a library.

Thank you for your kind offer, Leonie.

I have just had an appointment with a charity that are going to allocate me a support worker, who is going to help me reapply for DLA, ESA and Direct Payments.

These payments will help me cover the additional costs that I incur through my disability.

Right now, I can't cover any of the costs that my Care Needs Assessment from Adult Social Care says I need, and that I had until two years ago with the financial help from these benefits.

I need DLA and ESA to enable me to pay my subscription charges for my Medicaid bracelet, I have been unable to renew mine with up to date information for two years now, and my treatment has changed considerably in that time, and I am on additional medication that isn't on my old one either.

I need DLA and ESA to pay for new anti-suffocation pillows, that haven't been replaced for two years, when they are meant to be replaced every 6 months.

I need DLA and ESA to pay for a new kettle tipper, as mine has broken.

I need DLA and ESA to cover the increased transport costs I face as I am unable legally to hold a driving license. As I no longer get DLA, a 'key' benefit that enables access to other things that a person with disability needs, which means that I now cannot get my free bus pass from the council, so have to pay ALL my transport costs, reaching £230 a month now.

I need DLA and ESA to cover the costs of getting a passport to use as I.D, as I am unable legally to even hold a provisional driving license due to my disability.

I need Direct Payments from Social Services to cover the cost of hiring a gardener to cut my lawn, so that I am not in breach of tenancy for having a messy garden.

I need Direct Payments from Social Services to pay for someone to do my ironing, as I have injured myself by burning myself while having a seizure, so it is unsafe for me to do.

As I no longer get DLA, a 'key' benefit to access other services, I was taken off the (very long) waiting list with OT to get a wet room fitted. As I could drown in a bath if I have a seizure in there, it is unsafe for me to use the bath. This means that though I was next on the list to get a wet room fitted 2 years ago, after waiting 4 YEARS to reach the top of the list, I was taken off the list. For the last 8 years, I have had no choice but to only wash myself by having strip washes standing by the sink. Even if my DLA is reinstated, it will take ANOTHER 4 years for me to reach the top of the list again. By which point, no doubt, I will have been reassessed again, and if I lose my DLA again then, I will once again be taken off the waiting list.

So far I have spent EIGHT YEARS being unable to have a proper wash.

It is very demeaning to even be unable to properly WASH oneself, especially as it is down to the removal of a benefit that I relied on.

So when you say that reassessments don't hurt genuinely disabled people, think again.

sorry to be pedantic but 50% tax rate does not mean you have 50% of your earnings taken in tax. You only pay 50% on the amount you earn above the higher rate threshold.

I know that btw fifty. But a pound earned is a pound earned no matter how much or how little you have earned before or after it.

I also need Direct Payments from Social Services to enable me to pay a carer to come in and cook a decent meal for my children when my health is at its worst, instead of relying on expensive microwave food for weeks at a time. I forgot to add that one in.

It was not a tax cut. It was a reassessment that the massive 10% hike the previous year had been far to detrimental to the total tax take as the exchequer took half a billion less from that sector than it had at the 40 percent rate.
I note you didn't think it unfair that we suddenly were hit with a whopping 10% tax hike.

The 45% rate is still a 5% hike from what it was 2 years ago. No onese else tax rate when up 5% did it?? So we certainly are being hit as hard as the rest and as individuals we are paying a lot more than the other end of the scale.

Do you begrudge someone like me that tax money that would enable them to WASH?

Because it IS people like me that are being hurt by these cuts to disability benefits, and IDS has given ATOS the brief of reducing disability benefit claimants by 20% DESPITE the fact that there is only a combined fraud AND DWP error rate of just 0.5% on these benefits. So it stands to reason that GENUINELY DISABLED PEOPLE WHO NEED THESE BENEFITS ARE GOING TO LOSE THEM, WHEN THEY HAVE NO ALTERNATIVE WAY OF FUNDING THE EXTRA COSTS THEIR DISABILITY INCURS.

You think you are being 'hit as hard as the rest'

Seriously? Do you genuinely believe that?

Goodness me.

Do you have the correct facilities to enable your self care? Then you are not being hit as hard as me. There is no way a sane, reasonable person could possibly think that.

The DLA fraud rate may be low, but that doesn't neccesarily mean that it isn't being given out to people that dont need it, because of the fact that it isn't means tested.

And DLA, which that much used figure of 0.5% refers to, isn't every disability related benefit. So there may well be people on other, easier to claim, disability related benefits that shouldn't be.

Personally I am a big supporter of DLA and the fact that it isn't means tested. It's good that we have a benefit that recognises extra living costs associated with disability regardless of personal financial situations.

I don't think the government are going about reducing disability payments in anywhere close to the right way, but fundamentally I think people should be assessed to see if they can work, because plenty of disabled people can. If the reforms were only going to encourage people to work when they could work then it would be a good thing. The problem is that the government can't be trusted to implement common sense.

sorry I just can't worry to much about people who earn that much money they can afford to find ways to hide it anyway.
to bring it up on a thread about cuts to DLA proves that some people have no idea, really no idea.
and yes disabled people are being hardest hit, you can pretend otherwise as much as you like, but it is true.
there are posts on here explaining why.
I suggest people who are so worried about high earners read them and see the trap that a lot of really disabled people will be falling into, and how they end up with no money.

ESA has an even LOWER combined fraud and DWP error rate of just 0.2%.

What other, 'easier to claim' disability benefits are you referring to?

No one is denying the real in need to money they requiered. That's about the 10th time again we need to remind you of the fact that nobody on here has aid take all the money away. They are saying ensure the pot is given to those in need.

The fraud rates arent what the government is interested in, it's not about fraud. If the criteria for recieving a benefit is very generous, then of course there won't be much fraud.

It's about reducing how many people are entitled to certain benefits.

Having seen the DLA claim form, I'd have thought the majority of other benefits are easier to get than DLA aren't they?

Are you just not reading the personal stories Novack or the links that show the system is so badly thought out that you only some cancers qualify (not depending on how ill they make you depending on whether the treatment is administered via iv or something else).

Goodness you must be working hard to ensure that the illusion that the benefits for 'genuine' claimants is safeguarded.

Who's begrudging anyone a bath?

That's the sort of hysterical crap that makes people completely miss valid points.

Couthy isn't able to take a bath.

Perhaps you missed that bit of the thread.

All over Twitter now Standoff at Atos between disabled activists and police. And Tweeters are questioning and tweeting the BBC asking why the News blackout.

huge huge difference between cutting bin collections to every other week and preventing people being able to pay for carers and disability aids