Anyone else feeling sick waiting to see what the PIP cuts will be?

[Somethingthecatdraggedin7]

Wondering if I will still be able to pay for the numerous services and things my disabilities necessitate.
I think, given I have such severe issues, that I may be one of the “lucky” ones as from what I have read so far I would still have enough pip points plus I am older and have stage 4 cancer (separate to my other significant disability) but who knows.
Even if I escape the cull I am sad and scared for others who may lose their award.

to be clear, I'm not equating wheelchair ramps with racism, just that it's not true that wheelchair users always get ramps and access, and it's a similar sort of harmful false comparison assuming that people in other marginalised groups must have it better

Well I can only go on my own experience as I frequently report racist comments (and also threads) and they are deleted within minutes. I recognise racism perfectly well, which is why I report it. I neither ignore ir nor consider it minor.

@RejoiceandSing I'm white so I don't know, but I'm guessing it's frustrating to hear the attitude that your experience of discrimination must be better because of xyz
That was certainly not what I was saying - as I said above, my own experience (as someone who is subject to both race and disability discrimination) is that when I report race discrimination it disappears quickly, when I report disability discrimination it never does). I do not consider one to be better than another, and can only comment on my own personal experience in MN. It is as a disabled person that I feel the hatred and deliberate offensiveness here- but perhaps I don't hang out on the right boards?

And I was not saying that at all.

Okay, I'm sorry

That's ok - I got the point. Talking at cross purposes.

1. We have from 18 to 68, fifty years, to enrol in an occupational or private pension and build a pot. You can be born disabled or become disabled at any time, not a fixed point in the future, so pensions and health insurance they aren't comparable.
2. Health insurance doesn't cover pre-existing conditions, so your suggestion wouldn't work for people born disabled.

If you read my posts about State pensions on any thread, at no point do I ever talk about abolishing State pensions. I talk repeatedly about abolishing the Triple Lock. No other State benefit enjoys the inflation-proofing of the Triple Lock, not even DLA for children. This isn't taking away a right from pensioners, it's removing a privilege that only they, amongst all who depend upon State benefits, have and that they should never have had in the first place.

How does that adage go? Something about equality feeling like oppression if you're used to privilege?

As I said previously, I do not believe in a race to the bottom. Just because the state pension is the only one that has protections doesn't mean it should be the only one. If the status quo changes, it doesn't have to change for the worst. Why on earth would I wish to argue to make things worse (for some people) rather than better (for more people)?

We have from 18 to 68, fifty years, to enrol in an occupational or private pension and build a pot. You can be born disabled or become disabled at any time, not a fixed point in the future, so pensions and health insurance they aren't comparable.
You may have 50 years. People born in the late 1950's don't - they are (mostly) already retired and have lived through periods where there were few occupational pension schemes / private schemes that were accessible to them. Perhaps you only know people who are middle class with nice pensions and homes owned outright. That is not the sum total of pensioners or those approaching pension age. And health insurance is comparable if (again) you consider that the current system isn't the only one possible. The UK system is actually very unusual in world terms - it is not the best, nor is it the worst - but it is certainly not the only possible model. Again, why assume that we must keep the status quo or have something worse - we could aspire to something better?

Health insurance doesn't cover pre-existing conditions, so your suggestion wouldn't work for people born disabled.
Our system of health insurance doesn't cover pre-existing conditions - I didn't say that I supported such a change, but it is certainly possible.

I'll be sure to let the pensioners I know who are avoiding using gas and electricity because they can't afford the bills that they are privileged. 1.4 million pensioners claim pension credit because they are poor, and it is estimated that 4 out of every 10 pensioners eligible aren't claiming it - they are also poor. And if £12,000 annually is anyone's idea of luxury, then I'd love to know what hardship is.

Around here many of them are disabled with industrial diseases, their pension scheme was stolen, there hasn't been jobs for most of them in decades due to lack of employment / ill health caused by their former employment, and their communities / industries were deliberately destroyed by Margaret Thatcher. Some privilege.

There is a thread in the Covid section where a vulnerable person who has been called for the spring booster wasn’t sure about having it or not despite being directly advised to by her doctors, and of course the usual descent of naysayers found the thread… MNHQ is letting posts where people are horrifically goady about things like someone’s partner dying of Covid stand, and eg a post where someone has outright said “verysmellyjelly is just trolling” (so… somehow that is magically not troll hunting or a personal attack) but deleted my post where I talked about the child who recently died of measles in the USA, and pointed out the real dangers of the antivaxxer rhetoric being spewed all over the thread. I know they’re going to claim I worded something wrong again but like, sorry I can’t perfectly adhere to their secret wording requirements, it’s called autism and when I explicitly asked them for help on doing so, they said no!!

It’s so obvious that there is a bias against autistic women actually sharing our views bluntly. And yet the onslaught of people trying to manipulate someone whose doctors think she is vulnerable enough to need the vaccine (this isn’t an abstract discussion of something like herd immunity or compulsory jabs, which is a different topic) is totally fine, of course.

I know this sounds crazy but it literally makes me feel suicidal to think there’s nowhere on the internet, even a female site like MN, where autistic women can actually post and be heard. I just feel so unwanted everywhere. I even tried talking to chatgpt about this the other day. The so called autistic spaces on much of the internet are usually terrible and have no space for diverse views, being even slightly GC, etc, you’re a Naziif you won’t use “it” pronouns (which I think are dehumanising). But MN just hates disabled people so much. I genuinely think they want rid of us.

And it’s not like you can go out and make friends in real life if you’re physically very disabled.

I saw the article about the child dying of measles however there has been evidence to show that some vaccines in America (not the UK) do cause autism like symptoms in children and even death.

Vaccines don’t cause autism. That has been thoroughly debunked in the past.

And I wouldn’t trust anything “scientific” coming out of America at the moment

I’ve just re-read the article that I sent and yes, every article is saying that it doesn’t cause it I remember reading that it did cause it I must’ve been giving misinformation

You should ask MNHQ to remove your posts containing misinformation about the MMR vaccine.

it is estimated that 4 out of every 10 pensioners eligible aren't claiming it [pension credit]

That failure to claim has nothing to do with the Triple Lock. I encourage everyone who is entitled to a means-tested benefit to claim it.

If the cupboard is truly bare, as successive Govts have told us it is, then we cannot afford to apply Triple Lock to all benefits. The fair thing to do is take it off the one benefit that it currently applies to. People whose pensions were "stolen" (I assume you refer to fraud on the part of scheme operators here) should be compensated, at State expense if need be. Keeping the Triple Lock isn't the right way to deal with scheme owner fraud, because it's giving money to people who weren't defrauded whilst not giving enough to people who were.

"If the cupboard is truly bare..."

You are still playing by the accepting rules that don't make any sense, and don't need to apply. But I am simply going to say once more that I do not agree that we must race to the bottom - if we accept that the cupboard is bare and the triple lock need to go, then so should pensions, disability payments and anything else we care to dispose of that costs ----IF we accept it is bare...

And no I do not mean fraud by scheme operators. I mean the pensions that miners paid for that was stolen by the government.

I won't engage on this any longer - you have a fixed view and that is your perogative. I don't accept that there is only one truth or one option. We will never agree. Even whether the cupboard is bare is a matter of interpretation. Rule books can be torn up. They often are.

The MPS scheme is getting the money back, the Govt has agreed to repay it after a court case. As it should, because that money should never have been taken. State fraud is still fraud.

The State pension has always been a ticking time bomb. It should never have been set up as a Ponzi scheme and a Govt will have to address that at some point. The longer they leave it, the harder it will be.

The MPS scheme is getting the money back, the Govt has agreed to repay it after a court case. As it should, because that money should never have been taken. State fraud is still fraud.

They are getting part of the money back. £1.5 billion out of nearly £5 billion taken, which will not help those already dead. And which represents a very small amount for income for former miners - an average of just £29 per week.