this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
8 points (90.0% liked)

United Kingdom

4034 readers
115 users here now

General community for news/discussion in the UK.

Less serious posts should go in [email protected] or [email protected]
More serious politics should go in [email protected].

Try not to spam the same link to multiple feddit.uk communities.
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric news, and should be either a link to a reputable source, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread.

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Jon-H558 They should be free. They are here in Wales.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Universal free prescriptions are a gimmick. The NHS budget is not infinite - every penny that the Senedd chooses to spend on free prescriptions for middle class people who could already afford to pay for them is money that is not being spent on GP surgeries and cancer treatments and hip replacements.

It is almost indefensible to fritter money away on middle class gimmicks when tens of thousands of Welsh patients have to wait for >2 years for
an operation. England, which does not spend its finite NHS budget on universal free prescriptions, does not have the same problem.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Universal free rx is in no way a gimmick.

We already see many people who are on low income. But not entitled to benifits. Forced to make a choice over filling rx.

And that is the issue. Have the means is a very expensive system to manage. Any system that rellies that way costs more to run then the current cost.

Yet the whole people who have means to pay should. Is a gimmick. Designed to invoke a fair distribution idea. The point is no one pays rx costs. The difference between the rx charge and the cost of providing meds is huge. It in no way even covers the distribution cost.

Its only value is to make some feel that rich folk don't get free goods. The cost of the meds still far out weighs what they pay. And it hits poor folks way harder then anyone rich.