government does u-turn on medical cards

patrickc

well 95% of people will keep them now.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1021/budget.html

the Government has announced a number of major changes to the controversial plan to abolish the automatic right to medical cards for the over 70s.

At a news conference this morning, the Taoiseach said people who are over 70 will not be automatically entitled to a medical card, but will undergo a means test.

However, income eligibility limits are to be significantly increased to ensure that around 95% of those who currently have cards will retain them.

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Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Minister for Health Mary Harney and Minister for the Environment John Gormley held the news conference to to announce the changes.

The new income thresholds for qualification for a medical card for over-70s announced today are €700pw for a single person, equivalent to €36,500pa, and €1400pw for a couple, or €73,000pa.

Toiletroll

Good news and inevitable

patrickc

Toiletroll wrote: »

Good news and inevitable

they would have fallen from the rafters if they hadn't done it, Oh how i wish they'd fallen

Karoma

Those without Alzheimer's shall forever remember the government's attempt.
Those with Parkinson's shall forever shake their fists in anger.

Run_to_da_hills

Karoma wrote: »

Those without Alzheimer's shall forever remember the government's attempt.
Those with Parkinson's shall forever shake their fists in anger.

My old man has forgotten about it already

Toiletroll

Karoma wrote: »

Those without Alzheimer's shall forever remember the government's attempt.
Those with Parkinson's shall forever shake their fists in anger.

Very very good.. *giggles*

Hellrazer

Toiletroll wrote: »

Good news and inevitable

Now lets see what other budget fook ups we can get overturned.

beerbaron

Hellrazer wrote: »

Now lets see what election fook ups we can get overturned.

FYP

Hellrazer

beerbaron wrote: »

FYP

Problem is who do you put in there to replace them??

Wouldnt trust any of them.

patrickc

Hellrazer wrote: »

Now lets see what other budget fook ups we can get overturned.

apparently the levy is next for low paid workers

kwinabeeste

patrickc wrote: »

The new income thresholds for qualification for a medical card for over-70s announced today are €700pw for a single person, equivalent to €36,500pa, and €1400pw for a couple, or €73,000pa.

€36,500 thats a bit much for someone who is single. Some people over 70 would not have a mortgage so what do they spend it on as they won't spend it on medical bills now? Surely it should be lower like €400/€500


There are a lot of families that don't earn that much, and a lot of young single workers as well. Should these people also get a medical card?

Raiser

patrickc wrote: »

apparently the levy is next for low paid workers

Feel sorry for any poor Joe on the minimum wage, in College etc. - on top of inflation, the national retailers hobby of playing "who'll pay my mad prices", VAT up .5% making EVERYTHING in the Country instantly that bit dearer and daft price hikes of 50% in essential utilities like gas and electricity - they have to live with that criminal, cynical muggers levy......How?

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Dudess

An FFer by any chance, Scientist...?
Seems to me more a case of them knowing full well their heads were about to be put on the block so they hurriedly came up with something to appease the masses (including their own voters).
I would have expected a no-confidence vote at the very least had this not been resolved.

kwinabeeste wrote: »

€36,500 thats a bit much for someone who is single. Some people over 70 would not have a mortgage so what do they spend it on as they won't spend it on medical bills now? Surely it should be lower like €400/€500

Think of the medical expenses a lot of old people would incur though. My gran's constantly going to the doctor - and she's not even suffering from a specific ongoing illness, she just has a lot of health complaints that crop up regularly... purely because of old age.

There are a lot of families that don't earn that much, and a lot of young single workers as well. Should these people also get a medical card?

A lot of them do, don't they?

Raiser

The Scientist wrote: »

Well done FF.
At least we have a Government that can take feedback constructively.

Sarcasm? Was there sarcasm in there? Please tell me there was???

- FF said for days that the decision would stand. Then got scared when their own TDs and backbenchers joined the rest of the Country in slandering their ignorance, stupidity and dim-witted political suicide.

They weren't even gracious in abject, arsé-kicked, humiliated defeat with Biffo commenting how the public hadn't understood the proposal which would only have affected blah, blah, waffle% of our elderly citizens.

W@nkers.

patrickc

kwinabeeste wrote: »

€36,500 thats a bit much for someone who is single. Some people over 70 would not have a mortgage so what do they spend it on as they won't spend it on medical bills now? Surely it should be lower like €400/€500


There are a lot of families that don't earn that much, and a lot of young single workers as well. Should these people also get a medical card?

yeh alot qualify for the medical card or gp only card, some elderly people have to get 100's of euro worth of meds a week, and on a small pension that would not be feasible for them.

Raiser wrote: »

Feel sorry for any poor Joe on the minimum wage, in College etc. - on top of inflation, the national retailers hobby of playing "who'll pay my mad prices", VAT up .5% making EVERYTHING in the Country instantly that bit dearer and daft price hikes of 50% in essential utilities like gas and electricity - they have to live with that criminal, cynical muggers levy......How?

it's just going to go from bad to worse, gas up 20% and now they want another increase, esb up as well, we'll see more and more people defaulting on mortgages etc and ending up on the streets, and is there extra funding for homelessness nope, less

The Scientist wrote: »

Well done FF.
At least we have a Government that can take feedback constructively.

yeh because they knew they'd be out on their asses if they didnt, they didnt think it through right in the first place, they knew over 70's children/grand children etc are the voters of today.

faceman

What would Joe the Plumber think?

kwinabeeste

Dudess wrote: »

Think of the medical expenses a lot of old people would incur though. My gran's constantly going to the doctor - and she's not even suffering from a specific ongoing illness, she just has a lot of health complaints that crop up regularly - purely cuz of old age.

yeah i know that older people tend to visit doc more, but if they are earning 36,500 a year with no mortgage then what else do they spend the money on. The other older people on state pension or lower pensions i have no problems with them getting the medical card. I'm just sayin 36,500 pa is high

Dudess wrote: »

A lot of them do, don't they?

nope... what i meant was younger single professional people.. say earning 30K. If you work and earn over 15K per year you don't if you are single.. thats

http://www.dohc.ie/press/releases/2005/sample_cases_20051013.html

Wile E. Coyote

€36,500 is a ridiculous figure for people who have no mortgage to pay and have nothing else to be spending their money on. I earn about the same amount and have to pay mortgage, car, household bills, medical bills, higher tax and get f*** all in return! :mad:

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Dudess

Wile E. Coyote wrote: »

€36,500 is a ridiculous figure for people who have no mortgage to pay and have nothing else to be spending their money on. I earn about the same amount and have to pay mortgage, car, household bills, medical bills, higher tax and get f*** all in return! :mad:

You're not old.

kwinabeeste

Dudess wrote: »

You're not old.

what has that go to do with price of turnips..

Any one over the the threshhold would more than likely have some form of private health insurance. I agree that the medical card is a good thing, the new limit just seems high relative to single people who could have to pay 300-700 to rent a room or pay a more for a mortgage while many single older people earnign over €700/week would more than likely not.. yet they get the cost of the rent/mortgage in free drugs... just seems a little unfair with the limits being that high..

Wile E. Coyote

Dudess wrote: »

You're not old.

True but thats got nothing to do with it. I don't begrudge any OAP forced to survive on the miserable state pension a medical card but do you not think someone who is getting €700 per week with no mortgage etc. can afford to pay their medical expenses?

Hellrazer

The Scientist wrote: »

They've reversed what was to be, an awful decision.
I think they deserve some credit for this.

They dont deserve any credit whatsoever for reversing the decision.It shouldnt have been made in the first place.

kwinabeeste

Wile E. Coyote wrote: »

True but thats got nothing to do with it. I don't begrudge any OAP forced to survive on the miserable state pension a medical card but do you not think someone who is getting €700 per week with no mortgage etc. can afford to pay their medical expenses?

+1

arybvtcw0eolkf

Wile E. Coyote wrote: »

€36,500 is a ridiculous figure for people who have no mortgage to pay and have nothing else to be spending their money on. I earn about the same amount and have to pay mortgage, car, household bills, medical bills, higher tax and get f*** all in return! :mad:

Our aged have done all that when this country was on its knee's, up to its bollox and on the verge of backruptcy.

You'd rather we reaped the rewards of their hard work, and wish them a speedy death before they start costing us money?.

Dudess

kwinabeeste wrote: »

the new limit just seems high relative to single people who could have to pay 300-700 to rent a room or pay a more for a mortgage while many single older people earnign over €700/week would more than likely not.. yet they get the cost of the rent/mortgage in free drugs... just seems a little unfair with the limits being that high..

"Older" people makes it sound like you're talking about people who are older than young. We're talking about old people here. We have no idea how hard life can be for them, for it to be a struggle to climb the stairs, for a moderately cool temperature to feel like full-on cold and get into the bones etc.

Wile E. Coyote wrote: »

do you not think someone who is getting €700 per week with no mortgage etc. can afford to pay their medical expenses?

But it's not just "someone", it's an elderly person. Saying "a person", "someone" etc is unfair because it compares them with me or you and just puts them in a general category when they're in a separate one. I think €700 is pretty generous but not terribly so. And "someone who is getting €700 per week with no mortgage etc. can afford to pay their medical expenses" - again, these aren't just any medical expenses, e.g. like the ones you and I pay, these are the medical expenses of people who require medical care FAR more than we would - e.g. on a weekly basis when the going is good. Medical care is expensive enough as it is, it's insulting for a person (unless they're very wealthy) to have to pay for what the ravages of old age is doing to them.

funk-you

Hellrazer wrote: »

Problem is who do you put in there to replace them??

Wouldnt trust any of them.

I dunno, but after this length of time and amount of fuck ups i'd like to give someone else a try for 4 years.

-Funk

Mark200

Mairt wrote: »

Our aged have done all that when this country was on its knee's, up to its bollox and on the verge of backruptcy.

You'd rather we reaped the rewards of their hard work, and wish them a speedy death before they start costing us money?.

I hate the whole "they survived the tough times and made the country what it is today, they deserve it" etc argument. You can't just generalize people like that just because they're old. How do you know they worked hard?

kwinabeeste

Mairt wrote: »

Our aged have done all that when this country was on its knee's, up to its bollox and on the verge of backruptcy.

You'd rather we reaped the rewards of their hard work, and wish them a speedy death before they start costing us money?.

hold on a minute here... any one who has income of over 700/week has another private pension so during the 80s and 90s they had a few spare quid. So if this is the case they also probably saw big development in the property market and the the house they bought for not a lot in 70s or 80s is now roughly worth €400k ish which they may have sold to someone who is earning €700/week and paying taxes at the higher rate while they sit back in their armchair watching Seoige and getting free Medical Card

that fair?

Wile E. Coyote

Mairt wrote: »

Our aged have done all that when this country was on its knee's, up to its bollox and on the verge of backruptcy.

You'd rather we reaped the rewards of their hard work, and wish them a speedy death before they start costing us money?.

The country is on it's knee's, up to it's bollox and on the verge of bankruptcy.

Who's wishing anyone a speedy death? I just think that €700 per week is too high.

Clare_Guy

Wile E. Coyote wrote: »

€36,500 is a ridiculous figure for people who have no mortgage to pay and have nothing else to be spending their money on. I earn about the same amount and have to pay mortgage, car, household bills, medical bills, higher tax and get f*** all in return! :mad:

€36,500 IS a ridiculous figure, it should be €100,000 or €1 under the pension of a T.D.!

Do you not think that the elderly in our society had all the same expenses as you throughout their lives? think about yourself when you're 70 and ask is €36,500 is ridiculous...

arybvtcw0eolkf

Mark200 wrote: »

I hate the whole "they survived the tough times and made the country what it is today, they deserve it" etc argument. You can't just generalize people like that just because they're old. How do you know they worked hard?

"working hard" doesn't have to mean the men were out digging ditches while the women out out tilling the fields, herding the cattle and working on the docks in their spare time.

"Working hard" also mean's putting you, me and all our generation through schooling, raring us, educating us and making sure we had full tummy's while not having a pot to piss in.

Money wasn't in abundance, whether you worked physically hard or not. So to the majority life was hard work. Putting clothes on the kids, worrying for months about Christmas or occassionally putting a steak or the more expensive joint of meat on the dinner table - THAT was hard work when there was little employment and when what exployment there was was taxed to the tits.

I personnally respect the heck out of our aged citizens, individually everyone of them have their own different story - some were good, some bad and some evil bastards no doubt but collectively the majority put this country where it is now.

Leave them the hell alone.

asdasd

Our aged have done all that when this country was on its knee's, up to its bollox and on the verge of backruptcy.

We all grow old. We all work. The younger generation depends on us, as we depend on them as we age. The question still remains - do the well-off old need a medical card.

(That particular generation has done pretty well out of property prices, as far as I can see).

As for who took the brunt of the country when it was up to it's bollox, and on the verge of bankrupty. Well they are no longer with us. Try find them in Oz, Britain, or the US. And the stay at home poor would get the medical card anyway, as they did through their lives.

So there are two fallacies here.

1) all old are poor.
2) Everybody was poor during the eighties.

Both are wrong.

Clare_Guy

Wile E. Coyote wrote: »

The country is on it's knee's, up to it's bollox and on the verge of bankruptcy.

Who's wishing anyone a speedy death? I just think that €700 per week is too high.

yeah and the €100 million this'll save is gonna fix the country? take your anger out on the people who got us here, the f*cking government, not the weakest people in our society...

asdasd

€36,500 IS a ridiculous figure,

Is that the per-capita figure. i posted somewhere before about how much a single earner two kids family would need to have that much per-capital ( working out housing costs).

It is way past €100K

asdasd

the weakest people in our society...

What if some of them were bankers?

Clare_Guy

asdasd wrote: »

What if some of them were bankers?

ok, what if some of them were bankers?

Mark200

Clare_Guy wrote: »

ok, what if some of them were bankers?

Then they probably don't need the Government to give them medical cards

Clare_Guy

Mark200 wrote: »

Then they probably don't need the Government to give them medical cards

irish banks employ 40 to 50 thousand people, are they all millionaires?

is_that_so

The Scientist wrote: »

Nope, never voted for FF in my life.
But the amount rabbling on boards about our Government is ridiculous.
They've reversed what was to be, an awful decision.
I think they deserve some credit for this.

This is the kind of ostrich thinking FF seem to use as well. If they had spotted the potential problem and put up their hands and said "whoa" rather than have to be beaten into it then yes you might have a point. It is a very fine political U-turn which questions the basis of the thoroughly inept logic that came up with the plan in the first place. And we still haven't got to the other bright ideas.

kwinabeeste

Clare_Guy wrote: »

yeah and the €100 million this'll save is gonna fix the country? take your anger out on the people who got us here, the f*cking government, not the weakest people in our society...

most sensible post of day on the 100 million savings.. but if the limit was lower would it save more?

so the people who got us here are the government but who voted them in? some evidence points that older people vote more than younger and so does table 2 in this http://www.ucd.ie/dempart/workingpapers/ireland.pdf so the old people have noone to blame except themselves (not being serious) but it does raise a point that they voted for them cos the free medical card came in in 2001 and that paper reflects 2002 election...

Clare_Guy

kwinabeeste wrote: »

most sensible post of day on the 100 million savings.. but if the limit was lower would it save more?

so the people who got us here are the government but who voted them in? some evidence points that older people vote more than younger and so does table 2 in this http://www.ucd.ie/dempart/workingpapers/ireland.pdf so the old people have noone to blame except themselves (not being serious) but it does raise a point that they voted for them cos the free medical card came in in 2001 and that paper reflects 2002 election...

haughey and bertie always looked after the pensioners, they voted for bertie in the last election and now the arrogant, confrontational pr*ck brian cowen and the picture of health, mary harney are screwing them!

asdasd

one quick point here before my luch break ends. We all get old, as I said.

Those of you who are in the private sector try and work out how much you would need to stash away before retirement to have a pension equilalent of €36,500. Take inflation into account .

Lets assume a reltively low rate of inflation - i.e. 2.5% a year would double costs in 30 years. This inflation reduces your real saings as well, of course so you would need to save more.

Starting from now then you need to earn €73K in 30 years.

How much do you have to have in the bank to earn that?

Lenin

Didn't they say they would still save the €100million? That just means they are gonna take it from us in another way...

Clare_Guy

Lenin wrote: »

Didn't they say they would still save the €100million? That just means they are gonna take it from us in another way...

taxation is inevitable, the fairest form of taxation is direct, proportional, income tax. having said that, the government could save billions by just dealing with some of the inefficiences in state bodies, cutting un-needed expenditure (metro, anyone?) and public sector redundancies... they'll never have a better time to this...

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Dudess

asdasd wrote: »

The question still remains - do the well-off old need a medical card.

No. And they're not getting one ("well off" is a lot more than €36,500).

Clare_Guy wrote: »

think about yourself when you're 70

And possibly with 20 years of growing older ahead of you...

Pigletlover

I'm listening to Joe Duffy and all the old people are ringing in saying they're still protesting tomorrow. Joe keeps pointing out that the Government have increased the limits to €36,500 for a single person, but their still adamant that they have a reason to protest. All week they've been calling on the Government to review the decision and now that they have they're saying it's not good enough and that now they're even angrier . There's only one elderly woman actually making sense, acknowledging that we're in a recession and if someone can afford to pay for their medical care then they should.

I think a single person with an income of €36,500 or a couple with €73,000 with no mortgage should easily be able to pay medical expenses.

Boskowski

Dudess wrote: »

No. And they're not getting one ("well off" is a lot more than €36,500).

WTF?

State aid from tax money is for the needy and also to prevent someone to become needy unnecessarily. If someone has 3000 per month she is clearly not needy. Now if that person has some medical condition that costs 1500 per month that's another story. But to suggest that 3000 per month (most likely without a mortgage) is not well-off I'm beginning to wonder how you arrived at that conclusion?

The whole thing is blown out of proportion. I'm not pro FF but this is beginning to become ridiculous.

Older people have higher expenses on medical things, younger people have higher expenses on raising their children. These are facts of life. No need to cushion old people with 700 a week from paying a few doctors bills themselves. They have a lot of advantages already like reduces phones, ESB, travel etc.

luckat

I wonder if there's a connection between holding right-wing views and being unable to spell? Hmm, little study there, maybe...

FF have done a very silly thing in alienating their core voters. Very, very silly. The last of the PDs will sink them yet.