MSE Poll: What should be means-tested? Free bus passes, the NHS, student loans?

175 Posts



Poll started 23 July 2019
Which of the following allowances and entitlements do you think should be means-tested based on your income/wealth – in other words the richest don’t get it or get less. And which do you think everyone should get regardless?Did you vote? Are you surprised at the results so far? Have your say below.
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That way no child is singled out and no child should be in school hungry.
Many of the benefits should be scrapped - child benefit for one - we don't need to encourage people to have kids. Free museum access - I never knew this existed.
That said, I generally say free to all - why should someone who has worked all their life, lived frugally & saved miss out while a workshy career benefits abuser (not those who genuinely need benefits, but those who choose not to work) gets everything? Why should a high earner who has paid many times more taxes (income tax, NI, VAT, Road Tax, duties, student 'loan', etc.) & is more likely not to have availed of public services having gone privately for health care, gyms/leisure centres, etc. miss out on free bus passes (which if they helped convince those in failing health to give up driving would make us all safer) & TV licences?
Don't get me started on state pensions - I reckon if I ever get one I will be 72 to 78 & I really mean IF I get one.
The problem with all these individual benefits is that they have to be "managed" if they're not free for all and that costs!
To achieve this, where individuals need extra help eg Disabled needing home care or a modified home or appropriate transport, this should be provided free as the SINGLE state benefit would not expect to cover such costs.
There will be other examples where things needed to be provided free because of special circumstances but they should be provided for free and NOT given a benefit payment.
Secondly, e.g. re state pension, for 45 years I have contributed to everyone's state pension in those years; now that I have my state pension everyone younger is contributing to it, just like I did. So it's not free even now. Similarly NHS, I have contributed to its funding for nearly 60 years now and will continue to contribute to it until the day I die - and that's according to much tax I pay and that means it's already 'means-tested'. It's nonsensical to ask whether it should be free or means-tested. Same applies to most other items - we pay already through taxes of one sort or another things that you think are free and should be 'means-tested' - again an ideology that's irrational based on envy.
Thirdly, 'means-testing' is a (costly) device for raising money from the victims from whom more money is demanded. Never believe it's about reducing the costs for the deserving, whatever it feels like on the surface.
So to all those who want others, but not themselves, to pay more money, I say be careful of what you wish for. As as example, the TV Licence debacle will save the BBC £800m or some such but it's forecast to cost the country (i.e. everyone whether over or under 75) £1.6bn due to pensioners taking up the pension credit they are entitled to but hadn't claimed. I repeat - be careful what you wish for. I don't in the slightest begrudge pensioners getting what they are legally entitled too, but you - you - will have to pay for it.
A fair, and fairly simple way to contribute would be to add a notional amount to my taxable income.
Words, words, they're all we have to go by!.
(Pity they are mangled by this autocorrect!)
The NHS should be free at the point of need; enough of these things have been eroded already.
Bus passes and pensions should be free to all; the people have paid into the scheme over their working life. Otherwise it's just another tax with no returns.
This is one of the richest countries in the world, so let's act like it!
Free pass passes for all pensioners have irked me for a long time. Why not give free travel to job seekers. Many can't afford to take a job because it's too expensive to get there.
School meals should be means tested. Health and education should not unless for foreigners, we can't subsidise the rest of the world.
Of course libraries should be free, fines should not. I'm a library assistant and see many pensioners taking the mick with their loans. Can't manage to return something on time or renew it because they are off on yet another cruise or new motorhome. But a stressed out mum of four is expected to pay fines, I don't think so.