Getting abuse for "pretending to be disabled"

CTcelt1988

dktreesea wrote: »

It's unfair being disabled. But, for people who can afford to go without the payment - if your songwriting is good enough to earn 7 figures for the songs you produce, presumably you are good enough to make a living from it? - how is it fair to the taxpayer that they get a financial benefit beyond the direct cost of dealing with their disability?

How is it fair on the disabled person that they get denied timely access to the support they need - like for depressed people, how about access to talking therapy right now, today, when they need it, not in several weeks or months time? - from the NHS and instead get fobbed off with money, which, as you point out, doesn't always work out at £110 a week or so, and could only be £20 a week? If a depressed person needs a therapist £100 a week iis probably not enough for them to go out into the private market and buy what they need, let alone £20 a week.

If everyone who could afford not to claim DLA - and David Cameron, that includes you - went ahead and exercised their rights and claimed it, maybe the welfare bill would go up enough so the government started to do the right thing, and means tested all benefits. There's a few they can look at long before squaring up to the disabled. Like requiring people to live off their own savings before they claim support from other taxpayers.

What do you propose should be the maximum income you should be on to get DLA?

dktreesea

CTcelt1988 wrote: »

What do you propose should be the maximum income you should be on to get DLA?

Household income at or above the 40% income tax bracket. Likewise for the basic state pension, WTC, child benefit and any other benefit that is not means tested.

Having said that, the marginal tax rate is way too high. It should, at the very most, be set at 33% up to £60k - £70k and maybe even as low as 25%.

Brassedoff

I too believe all benefits, and that includes the state pension should be means tested. The sum should be after taking mortgage/rent into account the higher tax rate.

I suffered a few years ago as I could not claim as my house was worth too much, never mind had I not paid the mortgage I would have lost it. But there you go.

I would have even been happy to repay the JSA back when in work through a higher tax rate. Now there's an idea! If they applied the same rules to JSA as tuition fee's, you would have a smaller benefits bill. For the NHS, those earning more than £25K a year have to make a token £20 contribution when making a doctors appointment. It may be controversial, but they are aimed at reducing the bill where possible. I would also not pay DLA to parents of children unless the children have significant physical disability. Parents of non disabled children have the same care responsibilities as others. A child of SLD/MLD and regular children have to take both to the pictures, swimming, zoo, amusement parks.

Reduce/remove benefits for some, convert it into a loan for others.

Then let me on to the NHS! :rotfl:

dori2o

dktreesea wrote: »

Household income at or above the 40% income tax bracket. Likewise for the basic state pension, WTC, child benefit and any other benefit that is not means tested.

Having said that, the marginal tax rate is way too high. It should, at the very most, be set at 33% up to £60k - £70k and maybe even as low as 25%.

WTC and Child Benefit (to an extent) are means tested.

CKhalvashi

dktreesea wrote: »

It's unfair being disabled. But, for people who can afford to go without the payment - if your songwriting is good enough to earn 7 figures for the songs you produce, presumably you are good enough to make a living from it? - how is it fair to the taxpayer that they get a financial benefit beyond the direct cost of dealing with their disability?

How is it fair on the disabled person that they get denied timely access to the support they need - like for depressed people, how about access to talking therapy right now, today, when they need it, not in several weeks or months time? - from the NHS and instead get fobbed off with money, which, as you point out, doesn't always work out at £110 a week or so, and could only be £20 a week? If a depressed person needs a therapist £100 a week iis probably not enough for them to go out into the private market and buy what they need, let alone £20 a week.

If everyone who could afford not to claim DLA - and David Cameron, that includes you - went ahead and exercised their rights and claimed it, maybe the welfare bill would go up enough so the government started to do the right thing, and means tested all benefits. There's a few they can look at long before squaring up to the disabled. Like requiring people to live off their own savings before they claim support from other taxpayers.

What do you feel the level should be set at?

I was earning about £19k at the time I claimed, and was in my early twenties.

Also, as I explained to someone a few weeks back, my earnings are nothing to do with anyone else (except the government), unless I am doing anything illegal.

CK

dori2o

dktreesea wrote: »

But the question still remains. Why should the disabled, even those who work, get a financial advantage over those who are not disabled? Not everyone who receives DLA gets a financial advantage. Their payment is to keep them level with the rest of the working world, to ensure they are not out of pocket more than the non disabled due to their decision to work. That's probably your situation. DLA that is used in the working world to level the playing field is not the kind of disability payment that is under threat.

At the same time, there are any number of disabled people who also get DLA but don't actually have any out of pocket expenses as a result of their disability. Or worse than that, the extra money they get enables them to remain disabled, to do nothing to improve their condition.

I have a condition which requires physiotherapy from time to time. Provided free, because I need it - the NHS working just like it is supposed to. In the last few years I have been encouraged on two occasions by the NHS to claim DLA. Why? Because they say I am entitled to it. How is it that a condition which occurs either for hereditary reasons, or as normal wear and tear on the body or both, creates a "proceed to Go and collect your £200" moment? It doesn't cost me anything - it's just life. And it already costs the taxpayer plenty, because of the support the NHS provides. Should the taxpayer really be asked to stump up a further £70 a week because I get driven around because it hurts to use a manual gearshift? Or how about a motability car so that I can have a free automatic car, because I am "entitled" to it, even though I work and could afford to buy my own but choose not to?

I claim DLA and I work. I spend every penny of the DLA and more either buying treatments the NHS will not, or cannot provide within a suitable time frame, using it to cover the loss in salary I had to take when I reduced my working hours to better manage my condition, or just making my life that little bit easier so that I'm not making the condition worse.

I could use public transport to get to work, but I would be in so much pain I'd be completely useless at work, so i drive, and until the Metrolink service in Manchester change their discriminatory rules and allow the carriage of mobility scooters, then thats how I will be forced to continue to get to work, which costs almost double what is does to travel on the tram, so it's hardly a decision I make for financial gain.

We have the argument every few months it seems on here. Although you may not be able to see any immediate additional costs almsot every disabled person has them, whether that be additional travel costs, loss of earnings costs, medication costs, un-prescribed medication costs, additional gas/electricity costs, special diets, home/garden maintenance costs including cleaning, private healthcare costs, respite care, therapy/treatment costs outside of the NHS, delivery costs for shopping etc for those who cannot get out to the shops......... they are just off the top of my head.

I's hard enough already getting by day to day for the majority of disabled people without the constant abuse, mocking and threats that disabled people suffer everyday.

You, or anyone else who believes the disabled get too much in benefits can gladly have my £55 a week DLA, but you take on my disability and the affects the Morphine, Ketamine, Mirtazapine etc etc provide also.

Doesn't seem such a good deal now does it?

eastc742

Hi all,

I don't work, I am desperate to work, but seemingly unable to find a company who is willing to let someone bed bound work from home, as a direct result, I receive ESA and DLA, however over 12 months have passed and I still haven't had the proper medical for my ESA.

However no matter how little that leaves me to live on, I just about manage to survive, and as someone who has socially isolated himself, I find that I can survive, and with the best will in the world I still manage to ignore all of the idiots who watch two carers carry me between the house and the car, or the car and the various doctors appointments, etc.. And still feel like they have the right to call me a scrounge and a cheat.

I did find out the other day that one of the women who took particular pleasure of using these types of comments in front of her children, had found herself in a position where one of her family members became disabled after being involved in a hit and run incident, and is now in a wheelchair constantly. She came up and apologised to me and my carers, then offered to help me in any way she could. She has since seen me twice and repeated her apology and offer of help. I am not really sure that I will ever accept her apology fully, or let her help me given the years of abuse which preceded it, however given the 100mg of morphine that her relative is on at the moment, maybe that's the solution to dealing with the type of people who take it onto themselves to demean and bully others with no grounds to do it.

As for the DLA, anyone who wants my DLA and motability car can have it, alongside the partial paralysis, 800mg morphine, 150mg tramodol, and everything else which I take every day.

prowla

Well, I am happy to pay the portion of my taxes which goes to help people who are genuinely disabled and I don't begrudge them a penny of it.

dktreesea

dori2o wrote: »

I claim DLA and I work. I spend every penny of the DLA and more either buying treatments the NHS will not, or cannot provide within a suitable time frame, using it to cover the loss in salary I had to take when I reduced my working hours to better manage my condition, or just making my life that little bit easier so that I'm not making the condition worse.

I would rather see a universal benefit, coupled with the disabled getting timely access to the services they need, not to mention the contraptions they may need provided and a subsidised price they can afford. That way, there would be no financial incentive to become classified as disabled. Nor any need for extra funds to meet the specific needs of individual disabled people.

At any one time we have any number of junior doctors out of work. The same across the whole spectrum of the health services. Nurses, physiotherapists, psychologists, occupational therapists having to work through agencies, or in less than optimal working conditions, because the NHS is too cash strapped to give them a job.

I've had some experience of the rehabilitation "services" offered to stroke victims. Just appalling. Way underfunded for the demand out there. The DLA wouldn't even begin to meet the cost of proper rehabilitation. It's about time we stopped "investing" in the DLA and invested in the actual goods and services disabled people require. Warm and weather proofed housing would be a good start.

I was shocked to see a stroke victim, an older man, returning to a flat run by the council that had walls which were damp/clammy to the touch. Someone comes and "sees" to him. It's meant to be half an hour a day, but half the time they are so rushed they are there more like 10 minutes. How exactly is he meant to get well enough to look after himself properly? Yet he was discharged.

If those who could afford to go without DLA didn't claim it, maybe, just maybe, people would get the help they need.

dori2o

dktreesea wrote: »

I would rather see a universal benefit, coupled with the disabled getting timely access to the services they need, not to mention the contraptions they may need provided and a subsidised price they can afford. That way, there would be no financial incentive to become classified as disabled. Nor any need for extra funds to meet the specific needs of individual disabled people.

At any one time we have any number of junior doctors out of work. The same across the whole spectrum of the health services. Nurses, physiotherapists, psychologists, occupational therapists having to work through agencies, or in less than optimal working conditions, because the NHS is too cash strapped to give them a job.

I've had some experience of the rehabilitation "services" offered to stroke victims. Just appalling. Way underfunded for the demand out there. The DLA wouldn't even begin to meet the cost of proper rehabilitation. It's about time we stopped "investing" in the DLA and invested in the actual goods and services disabled people require. Warm and weather proofed housing would be a good start.

I was shocked to see a stroke victim, an older man, returning to a flat run by the council that had walls which were damp/clammy to the touch. Someone comes and "sees" to him. It's meant to be half an hour a day, but half the time they are so rushed they are there more like 10 minutes. How exactly is he meant to get well enough to look after himself properly? Yet he was discharged.

If those who could afford to go without DLA didn't claim it, maybe, just maybe, people would get the help they need.

It's never going to happen.

Even if they stopped all disability benefits they wouldn't increase spending to the extent that would be required to ensure the disabled people were properly looked after either through social/community care or via the NHS. The costs involved would far outweigh the savings from abolishing the benefit.

The most cost effective way of operating is the way the system operates now, give the monmey to the claimant and let them decide how best this money be utilised to help with their condition.

If that means paying household bills with it so be it.

if that means the claimant can reduce the number of hours they work, thus helping to better manage the condition then so be it. if that is paying for alternative medicines/threatments etc etc then so be it.

There are very few options for disabled people as it is now. take away the means for these people to self manage their condition and they have nothing left. That will eventually lead to an increase in out of work benefits, CTB/LHA, an unsustainable increase in health and social care costs, an increase in poverty, an eradication of the good work that has been done over the past 50+ years trying to get the disabled somewhere close to an even footing with ordinary people, and most importantly a significant loss of social and physical mobility for disabled people.