Free prescriptions 'saving Welsh NHS money for 10 years'

[Northerner]

Ten years of free prescriptions for all in Wales is a "long-term investment" in people's health, a minister has said.

Health Secretary Vaughan Gething said since April 2007 it had kept people out of hospital and cut overall NHS costs.

The Welsh Government said the £593m cost of free prescriptions in 2015 was only £3m more than the bill in 2007.

Conservative spokeswoman Angela Burns said the cost was still too high, saying people should pay for their medicine if they could afford to.

Prescription charges were the same across the UK until 2001, when they were frozen at £6 in Wales by the then Labour-Lib Dem administration in Cardiff Bay.

Welsh ministers also made prescriptions free for all aged under 25.

They were already free for children, pensioners, people on benefits and pregnant women - accounting for about 90% of the total.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-39457033

 

[mikeyB]

Prescriptions are free for all in Scotland. This therefore includes Theresa May's much touted 'just about managing' folk who are poor, but not so poor to have access to benefits. Their choice is food, heating or medicine. It also includes the well off, but that is not a significant amount in comparison.

 

[Northerner]

Prescriptions are free for all in Scotland. This therefore includes Theresa May's much touted 'just about managing' folk who are poor, but not so poor to have access to benefits. Their choice is food, heating or medicine. It also includes the well off, but that is not a significant amount in comparison.

Whereas they've just raised the price here in England TM is doing absolutely nothing to live up to her speech - she's going ahead with Osborne's cuts to benefits, affecting some of the most vulnerable people in the country, putting children into poverty and potentially increasing homelessness among the young

https://www.theguardian.com/society...s-benefit-cuts-legacy-set-to-come-into-effect

 

[mikeyB]

And folk wonder why Scotland wants to be independent. It's the kind of heartlessness that is alien to the Scottish character. The government here can stop these changes, but hasn't got the tax raising powers to pay for it. Consultations are going on , including the general public, about building a completely new benefits system. This may or may not come to pass, depending on Brexit and its consequences.

 

[Amigo]

I have a very deep sense of social conscience and never cease to be amazed at the heartlessness of some of the welfare cuts suggested. However, I can't help but find myself asking if this welfare reduction really is so unfair;

'Single parents who are already claiming universal credit stand to lose £5,669 by 2019 if they have a third child after the new rules come into force.'

We are not talking about widows and widowers here (the changes to the benefits of widows is iniquitous) but single parents who have a third child and find that Child Benefit etc. isn't payable. Why do we want a system that encourages single people to have children they simply cannot afford?

 

[mikeyB]

Beveridge, whose report was the basis of the welfare state, was a lifelong eugenicist. He originally wanted child benefit to be on a sliding scale - the better off you were, the more you would get. His idea was to discourage poor people from breeding, and thus improve the population. This so appalled the Labour government that the idea was rapidly squashed.

Let us now look at today. Son of eugenics, heavily disguised, and unnoticed.

 

[Amigo]

Beveridge, whose report was the basis of the welfare state, was a lifelong eugenicist. He originally wanted child benefit to be on a sliding scale - the better off you were, the more you would get. His idea was to discourage poor people from breeding, and thus improve the population. This so appalled the Labour government that the idea was rapidly squashed.

Let us now look at today. Son of eugenics, heavily disguised, and unnoticed.

If it were only about money I'd agree Mike but professionally I saw far too many examples of children born to lone parents who suffered high levels of social and emotional impoverishment too when little thought had been given to whether there was money, time or capacity to sustain them. And before that's misunderstood, I'm not talking about all single parents who make reasoned choices.
I don't give a fig how many kids single parents have if they have an overall capacity to care for them but realistically the State can't and usually the 'sperm donor' has done a bunk by then!

There is a much bigger issue in welfare benefits that people seem afraid to tackle and that's the attitudinal one that's going from generation to generation in some cases of, 'we don't need or intend to work' because we are under the care of the State.
Beveridge never intended the safety net of welfare benefits to be a lifestyle choice.

 

[Andy HB]

And folk wonder why Scotland wants to be independent. It's the kind of heartlessness that is alien to the Scottish character. The government here can stop these changes, but hasn't got the tax raising powers to pay for it. Consultations are going on , including the general public, about building a completely new benefits system. This may or may not come to pass, depending on Brexit and its consequences.

A couple of things.

Scotland voted to remain in the Union.

Scotland does have independent tax raising powers.

Scotland may vote to leave the Union when the next referendum happens, but it won't be a 100% vote.

Scotland may have reasons for not using the tax raising powers that it has, but that is a choice. It is not the full truth to say that it has no such powers.

 

[mikeyB]

A couple more things. The current government in Scotland was elected with a manifesto promise that if there was a material change in the current agreement then a repeat inependence vote could be held. Brexit is what you might call a material change. Our government keeps its manifesto promises. Since the last referendum was sold by the remainders as the only way to remain in the EU, that was a fib. That's just democracy.

The tax raising powers that Scotland has been given relate only to income tax, which is only a small part of the UKs tax income from VAT, petrol, alcohol, National Insurance and all the other stealth taxes.

England and Wales voted for leaving the EU on referendum organised by a government elected by 37% of the electorate, and without any thought or plan as to what might happen. That's a bit less than 100%. At least the Scottish government will tell the people what will happen.

All this is a result of Brexit. Northern Ireland might well leave the U.K. and become part of a Federal Ireland. The thought of a hard border is appalling. God knows what will happen to Gibraltar or Cyprus. Unintended consequences, not thought through, or considered at all by Cameron. This is all about England, always has been.

And this is an argument for the people of Scotland and Northern Ireland. Nobody else.

 

[Amigo]

A couple more things. The current government in Scotland was elected with a manifesto promise that if there was a material change in the current agreement then a repeat inependence vote could be held. Brexit is what you might call a material change. Our government keeps its manifesto promises. Since the last referendum was sold by the remainders as the only way to remain in the EU, that was a fib. That's just democracy.

The tax raising powers that Scotland has been given relate only to income tax, which is only a small part of the UKs tax income from VAT, petrol, alcohol, National Insurance and all the other stealth taxes.

England and Wales voted for leaving the EU on referendum organised by a government elected by 37% of the electorate, and without any thought or plan as to what might happen. That's a bit less than 100%. At least the Scottish government will tell the people what will happen.

All this is a result of Brexit. Northern Ireland might well leave the U.K. and become part of a Federal Ireland. The thought of a hard border is appalling. God knows what will happen to Gibraltar or Cyprus. Unintended consequences, not thought through, or considered at all by Cameron. This is all about England, always has been.

And this is an argument for the people of Scotland and Northern Ireland. Nobody else.

I appreciate it's a matter entirely for Scotland and Northern Ireland Mike but I do wonder if Scotland could even expect automatic admission for EU membership. Were Scotland to hold a second independence vote and then back a split from the UK, the Government in Holyrood would have to apply for EU membership under Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union. Spain have already indicated opposition to Scotland joining saying they have no wish to encourage 'separatist' elements. There's already a queue to be joined and many struggle to gain membership.
'It comes as Nato's secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said an independent Scotland's membership of the military alliance was also "not automatic".'

There's also a financial price to pay for EU membership and it's said Scotland have a £15 bn budget deficit.

I just hope Scotland isn't being led by the personal ambitions of Ms Sturgeon.

*now ducks quickly into the kitchen!

Come to think of it, how did this discussion even move onto Scottish matters? 😎

 

[mikeyB]

Amigo, you are repeating tosh put about by the English press. There isn't a £15bn budget deficit. Did you know that every Scottish export which leaves the UK from an English port is counted as a UK export, not Scottish? Spain have said there is no objection to Scotland joining the EU - that was last time around. The high ups in Europe have said there is no 'queue' to join and Scotland would be welcome. These things aren't reported in the English media.

And Ms Sturgeons personal ambitions seem to chime with the population. There is one Labour, one LibDem, and one Tory MP in Scotland out of the 59 constituencies.

And I have to correct misconceptions. It all started with me mentioning that prescriptions were free in Scotland, and we didn't get to keep our own tax, so it's my fault, as usual. Sorry everyone

 

[Northerner]

My main objections to what the Tories have been up to over the past 7 years is that they have chosen the wrong priorities, and very deliberately They have used the excuse of the banking crisis to target small sections of society, many of whom are amongst the most vulnerable, in order to look like they are making 'hard decisions' in order to fix the economy. The problem is that they tar whole sections with the 'skiver/sponger/fraudster' (and now 'immigrant' it seems, in a bid to out-UKIP UKIP ) label to distract the voting public from the fact that they have done little, or nothing, to target the real money. They've sat back and inflated the already overheated housing market by giving incentives that ONLY enable private construction companies to keep prices high, whilst placing the house buyer in ever-increasing debt. Those completely shut off from house buying have to go largely to private landlords, who have a captive market and coin it in - at the same time takinng HUGE amounts of taxpayers money in the form of housing benefit. If the government really wanted to cut the benefit bill they would have invested in publicly-owned affordable housing so they have something to show for all the expense, and cut the benefits bill at a stroke. They won't do it, it serves their purposes to keep house prices high. Apparently there is ONE place in the entire country where a house can be bought on just a 5x multiple of average income. People are poor because half the money they get goes on housing. Housing has always been a major expense, but at least when I was younger it was no more than 3x average income - more common nowadays for it to be 10x They NEVER think things through or join up the dots 😡

And they wonder why people voted to leave the EU

I know which way I'd be voting if I lived in Scotland! 🙂

Sorry, I just needed to rant! 🙄 😉