Saturday 24 September 2011

Contribution based ESA for a year only!

I had decided to lay off the benefits blogs for a while, I had more pressing issues to deal with, me!
But this morning I received a letter from the DWP stating that IF the welfare bill gets passed by parliament then contributory ESA would cease to be paid one year after you have been awarded it from April 2012, worse still, if you had already had your years worth on that date your ESA payments would cease immediately.
This raised several questions in my mind, I have been asking for comments on twitter all day but surprise surprise not one Conservative/Libdem MP or supporter has communicated with me at all.
I don't think I am being unreasonable in asking
1) Why are you stressing people out before the bill has even been passed?
2) Why the haste?
If you were awarded ESA anytime before April 2011 you will lose that benefit straight away!
3) Why did I pay NI contributions for 25 years?

This has bothered me all day and here is why,
Is this Government really so arrogant that they are prepared to spend all this money it has cost to send out these letters to claimants BEFORE the bill has even been passed?
Are they really that uncaring that they are willing to cause worry and stress to thousands of claimants BEFORE the bill has been passed?
Do this Government really believe that sick/disabled people are going to be fit for work after just one year?

And on a personal level
Why did I pay my NI contributions for the 25 years I worked? I always was led to believe it was to support me if I was unfortunate enough to fall ill or become disabled.

I could continue with questions about what will happen to me once this benefit is stopped and point out that again I'm going to have to go through the awful process of having to prove that I have a progressive medical condition that is progressive and is disabling but believe me if that is what happens to me you will all be hearing plenty about it.

So for this blog I just ask that someone please get me the answers to my 'not too difficult' questions because I don't understand.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

2 comments:

Bill Kruse said...

The point of destroying the welfare state is to encourage people to take out private insurance to cover themselves in case of unemployment or ill-health. Yes you've already been doing that for 25 years with NI but the backers of the Tories obviously don't care about that as you didn't pay it to them. They want you to have to pay all over again, this time to them. It's simply crooked businessmen and corrupt politicians of all parties colluding to milk the public for everything that can be got out of us. The interests of we the electorate simply don't figure in this. It's all about the money.

BB

deb aka murphthesurf said...

I live in the US, so I can't comment on the stress of what you are going through with the political changes underway but just wanted you to know that my heart goes out to you right now. Stress with any chronic illness is bad enough let alone stress caused by the uncertainty of one's financial future (((HUGS)))!