Too Many Cuts...come join the #Frothers and have your say

[AnyFuckerForAMincePie]

This is the 3rd thread in a series.

It is for people who are horrified, frustrated and downright sad at the erosion of human rights with respect to how this country is being run, just now and in the recent past

it is apolitical in nature, but of course due to many recent initiatives by the recent govt, there will be rants against our current "leaders"

please join in

I shall post the link to the old threads, our "Too Many Cuts #Frothers" blog that is attracting a lot of widespread attention and a little bit of what we are about in a moment

EquipmEnt.

Checking in, staggered by Boffy's post this morning and subsequently, less froth, more deep despair actually.

Excellent blog Knotty - so poignant. What does it say about our society when we fail to look after our most vulnerable?

I am just about to write to my MP - Vince Cable, to ask him to sign AgeUK's pledge. DH and I have written to him before, and he is reliable in responding. I shall look forward to see what he comes back with. But will he sign the pledge? I'm also going to be directing him to the blog as a whole. Knots- the link for Macmillan, should that be a link to their campaign? Only it didn't work for me, hopefully it is just me

My daughter who is 14 has written a piece about being intimidated by student debt.It just needs looking at to see if it is blog worthy tbh then maybe we will be good to go. It will be interesting to see your post Slug on this.

Not sure if this will be off any use to HuntyCat and her calculations, the uprating of benefits and disregards for 2012 www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-vote-office/9-DWP-Social-Security-Benefits-Uprating.pdf

Feel free to ignore if it's of no use. Thank you for the thread by the way, I'm lurking but taking everything onboard!

There are 777 posts on here. How long do we think this level of stress and misery can be maintained without some kind of riot breaking out? It's only the exhaustion that's stopped us so far

Tianc
Boffy, since you've used the details of life as an example already, would you mind me asking what your plans are if, by this time tomorrow, you are seriously disabled?

NHS pension with Mental Health Officer status would provide me with a 'sick pension'....should be enough to live on. I also have a BUPA critical illness/disability insurance which should pay for carers, if that was required. I now live in a bungalow as I'm preparing for my old age!!
One never knows what's around the corner.

I will leave this thread now, as I clearly have very different politics to most of you and it was not my intention to fall out with anyone.

oh, and did you all see the MN Campaign for this week?

Maybe someone (Peachy?) could write a blog post linking up to that. Am sure MN would promote it.

Before you go Boffy I want to tell you a little bit about the insurances you mention...

Thanks for sharing that boffy.

So if you were "managed out" of the NHS following your disability, you would lose that cover? Or indeed if you were made redundant and then became disabled, you would lose that cover?

Private critical illness cover has an immense number of exceptions. Looks like Kate's about to talk about that.

I'm not having a go. Will keep it factual. I feel qualified to comment because as well as claiming for unemployment cover I have also sold these policies for years and years as my previous career was in financial services (I've just got my CIPD qualification so I can move to solely HR but not currently working as full time student).

DH and I have more insurance than you could imagine. And we took it out when we were in our mid 20s so we have low premiums (good health, non-smoker etc etc).

We have separate critical illness policies. These pay out £150,000 if diagnosed with a critical illness or if we die. The list of conditions is limited. This costs us about £75 per month. They will also both pay out £15,000 if DS is diagnosed with a critical illness.

We each have an income protection policy. This costs about £40 per month for dh and mine was £30. This would pay out for up to 25 years a fixed amount each month should we be unable to work due to medical conditions. There is a 13 week excess on my policy, 26 weeks on dh's. I cannot claim on my policy should I need to because I was made redundant. Once I go back to work I can get a new policy but it will be £££ as I'm older now.

dh also has an unemployment protection that will pay out for up to one year an amount that covers our mortgage only. This is £40 per month. I used to have one but I was made redundant. I claimed on it for 6 months before I became a full time student. I got £1000 per month. But in order to claim that I HAD to be claiming JSA. That was a miserable, soul destroying experience, looking for a job that did not exist and some of the things I overheard were shocking (illiterate man being told to get an admin job).

So, we pay out between us £185 per month just in "protection". Never mind the NI payments we make. This is not a realistic prospect for many people.

We joke that dh is worth more dead than alive. That's not actually true. Whilst he's fit and well and in work he is worth much more than a £150,000 pay out or the £600,000 odd he'd get from his pension provider (via private sector employer). I however, am worth more dead than alive as I'm not working. I'm not planning to claim any time soon!

I haven't really talked about the restrictions on critical illness policies. On the whole I think the policies are good so long as you have been sold one you can claim on. Some insurers underwrite at point of sale, others at point of claim. The latter is no good if you find out you weren't covered and the £150,000 you thought you were getting is only a refund of your premiums.

One restriction that always baffled me was the definition of incapacitated (Norwich Union and Legal & General policies had similar wording and both are underwritten at time of sale so better than some Tesco). Incontinence is not covered. Now I would have thought being doubly incontinent would be very limiting on the kind of work you could do.

An example from just last week of insurance company practice: "Family of dying Kent man refused life insurance money".

Royal Liver refuses to pay out if you become sick in the last year of a 10 year policy.

Our insurance has a long list of exemptions. I get my own tailored ones for pre-existing conditions, which I expected. But a lot of the other things mentioned I couldn't understand why wouldn't be covered - to the point where I know can't remember what they are and would have to look them up.

At least it is pretty cheap as we started it when we were 21.

Not to mention the fact that for someone with any kind of illness, getting life insurance is very difficult.

DH had a flu of some sorts about 4 years ago and was left short of breath and with a racing heart for a couple of weeks afterwards. He was unable to work for a bit and our GP sent him to a cardiologist just to make sure that there was nothing more serious going on.

We had issues getting dental insurance after that, as they wanted to exclude any possible risks. And they didn't even find anything, it was merely a precautionary measure. If we had been in UK, he likely would not have even had the tests.

I think the fact you have to claim JSA to be able to claim on the unemployment policies is quite telling.

If I were to buy another policy when I'm working again I would get one with the stimulation I never had to set foot in a job centre again (I don't think it exists mind).

We have had our first hatey comment on the blog and I've just found this in the frothers inbox:

Dear paranoid tin foil hat wearing twat,

Before your signature is added to the e-petition "BBC Bias" you need to confirm your email address by clicking on the link below:

submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/signatures/3206460/verify/1xwABecBhKlbSOlPN1hx
If you don't want to sign this e-petition or believe this message was sent in error, please ignore this email.

Thanks,

HM Government e-petitions epetitions.direct.gov.uk/

Was that twatty comment on the CSA post? I was consider a reply along the lines of "It's irrelevant why and how a couple broke up, the Non Resident Parent is still financially responsible for their children."

And just nothing more.

I actually don't understand the email so there you go!

Yeah. That's the one Te. I thought best to just ignore. Not worth the key-strokes.

The email is basically some knobber has taken the frother's email address and signed it up for an e-petition saying the BBC has a left bias and they should all be put in the stocks (or summat). They have registered us using the name "paranoid tin foil hat wearing twat"

I was hugely amused we could irritate someone that much as to go to all that trouble!

Oh I see! Ah well, if it keeps 'em amused...

I particularly like the way we are paranoid despite putting a lot of effort and work into research and fact checking.

Hunty ahve you accessed family fund yet? Useful for white goods etc, once a year charity grant

Family Fund in my area is ONLY doing disability equipment, as they are getting too many funding requests for Mac Majors and Wheelchairs, as our OT service isn't just overstretched - it snapped two years ago. They are ONLY doing OT equipment here for the last 2 yrs. It's not their fault - but what is more important? A wheelchair for someone non-mobile, or a fridge for a disabled LP? I'd rather they spent what they had on the wheelchairs!

I can't add comments to the blog, I've tried - But can someone put this reply up for me:

"Actually, Labour had first a £10 a week disregard, and then a £20 a week disregard of maintenance BEFORE they started to deduct anything from the Lone Parent's Income Support. This has been the case for the last decade. And it doesn't matter WHO ended the relationship, OR why - the non-resident parent is STILL financially responsible for their children."

Thank you.

And what a TOSSER. Doesn't matter if a woman has left a relationship - she may have left for any NUMBER of reasons - like her husband/partner may have been cheating, may have been abusive, may have been financially controlling, may have refused to take a fair share of the childcaring responsibilities etc. The NRP is STILL responsible for paying for his dc, blokes likethe 'geezer' who commented on the blog are the very REASON that the CSA has to exist!

He proves HIMSELF wrong, doesn't he!

Ah I see; ours is a bit different not being in England.

Am loathe to do the MN EDCM one as it's EDCM and mya rea does not fall under their auspices; however will let you know if I find anyone.

I can't bear to read the (below) thread as I'm in too much of a frothing froth about MANY things today, but has anyone been on here to explain about maintenance disregard or would anyone like to

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1361831-To-think-maintence-payments-should-be-cal

arrrrrrrrgh

Poster formerly known as glittaknicaz is willing to do it, Independent has done a story about her today. Think she would be fab. Need a variety of voices.