Cost of living crisis: How will prescription charge freeze help people who need it?
Sajid Javid: the eyes are open but the mind is not.
Sajid Javid’s an ignorant little… banker, isn’t he?
This entitled Tory twit has frozen prescription charges in England, saying keeping the charge at an extortionate £9.35 until next year will “put money back in people’s pockets.”
No, it won’t – certainly not for me. I live in Wales.
And it won’t even do that in England. It just won’t take any more money from people hard-pressed by the cost-of-living crisis.
And, of course, it won’t help everybody – just those who are ill…
… who aren’t among the 90 per cent who already get their prescriptions free of charge.
So that counts those on state benefits, pregnant women and new mothers, people with specified medical conditions or disabilities, the over-60s and under-16s out of having any money put back in their pockets by this change.
And of course people here in Wales, and also in Scotland and Northern Ireland, also have free prescriptions.
“The rise in the cost of living has been unavoidable as we face global challenges and the repercussions of Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine,” Javid said. “Whilst we can’t completely prevent these rises, where we can help – we absolutely will.”
But it seems the only people likely to benefit from this help with the cost of living are people who don’t need it. He’s just saving cash for his fellow Tories.
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Every other country in the UK aside from England has already worked out that the cost of collection of Prescription Charges far outweighs the amount collected. The only reason Charges still exist in England is the Tory obsession with victimising the sick and trying to ‘discourage’ people from taking time off work to get well. So this ‘freeze’ helps only ONE of the four nations and then hardly anyone benefits anyway. The suggestions for helping with the crisis are pitiful and deliberately so. If they were at all serious they would have capped Shell and others who wholesale oil and gas into the market rather than those who buy it from them. This deliberate move is meant to ensure that, in Thatcher’s words, people don’t ‘price themselves out of the jobs market’ They are deliberately impoverishing all but the few in order that wages and conditions can be kept low due to the necessity of holding on to your job at times like this. Eventually the market will settle somewhat but not anytime soon and the government aren’t looking to help this. Now the government has announced that the caps will be reviewed every three months meaning that there will be a review in October (start of winter) and then January (middle of winter) The govt are trying to present this as a way for the prices to drop sooner but it’s quite the reverse. The entire point of a cap is that the suppliers can drop their prices but not raise them above that point. This will allow the suppliers to raise their prices just when the poorest, the disabled, pensioners (who need/use heating most) are using the most heating. With another 50% rise guaranteed in October the rise in January is going to cause deaths, there’s no two ways about it. The government has created this crisis and then it has exacerbated it. This is not an error, this is quite deliberate and serves their need to play to their Daily Mail reading gammons who support them..
Over 60s do get free prescriptions at the moment in England, but are due to lose that from 60 to 67 (1960s born started turning 60 since 2020).
It is not £9.35 per prescription, but people have multiple ailments and each prescription is separately charged, for GP and NHS supplies.
Some of the 1950s pension campaign ladies, have found themselves with more than half a dozen different ailments.
We in NHS England are discriminated against by government, as in Ulster, Wales and Scotland, prescriptions are free for everyone.
As far as I am concerned,this tory government are a criminal Cartel.They are guilty of lies, theft, fraud,corruption, social murder, corporate manslaughter and treason against the queen and her ‘subjects’ . They belong in prison, not Parliament!