Aussie Pensioners below poverty line

[Winston Blake]

What is wrong with all of the people who think that if they had to suffer for something, everybody else has to suffer the same amount or more?

I'm annoyed by this, but I don't want them to suffer. I simply can't understand how ungrateful they are:

Another pensioner, "John" (69), who was the first to strip to his underwear at the demonstration, called the Budget a "slap in the face" and said "more needs to be done". When police tried to coax him away, they were surrounded by a swarm of other semi-clad pensioners.

The sticking point for me is their medical expenses, but Mr Friendly Guy mentioned that it's pretty much free for them.

As a uni student, my current income is $295/week, and I had been living on less for the last four years because my I was lucky enough to find a place close enough to walk to uni, and my new place includes the bills in the rent (=> more Rent Assistance). I can't believe that the poverty line is $303/week. Hell, I've been putting away savings for all my uni life, since my regular expenses of rent and groceries only add up to about $210/week. I was (and am) extremely grateful for not having to work while studying, while friends of mine do. I see that as being lucky and prosperous. Eating food out of dumpsters when they've got $273/week? What on earth?

Three possibilities:
- Pensioners have some massive sink of money that I don't.
- They simply waste money (like those US soldiers in soup lines who are paying off a sportscar).
- They're just whining (maybe they feel a need to 'keep up with the Joneses' or maintain an excessive pre-pension lifestyle).

I've just been searching around for info on the poverty line, and this is surprising to me: 60% of uni students live below poverty line.

[Surlethe]

Am I missing something in this thread? Are prices so high that these seniors are really unable to live on $275 per week? It might not be comfortable, but who says that subsistence living on the dole has to be comfortable?

Edit: $275, not $215.

[Stark]

Am I missing something in this thread? Are prices so high that these seniors are really unable to live on $215 per week? It might not be comfortable, but who says that subsistence living on the dole has to be comfortable?

Call Today Tonight! This man hates welfare, old people, and other minorities!

[mr friendly guy]

Has any current affair show actually looked at their expenses? If Korto can do it on lesser amounts, I am really curious as to why these pensioners can't. I remember a sob story about how the pensioner can't afford to turn her heater on.

I guess a lot of them don't need to since they can obvious strip down in the Australian WINTER without feel ill effects.

I will add a bit more on the medical bills.

1) Australia's health system will provide for them if they need to turn up to the emergency department. So if they cannot afford a General Practitioner (whose charges are subsidised any way by the government) they always have this recourse.

Just be aware that if its a minor complaint (ie one a GP could deal with real quick) you might have to wait since the Doctors there will prioritise with sicker patients first.

2) The health system will provide FREE outpatient clinics, the only cost involve for you is the transport to the Hospital.

In case any one is interested, we have had patients complain about transport costs especially when the outpatient clinic is say in a tertiary hospital (because it has the required specialists), and not closer to their local hospital (a peripheral one and hence provides less services), even though its only a 20-30 minute drive from one hospital to another.

3) We can provide rehabilitation in the home (ie physiotherapists, occupational therapist) to visit you and help with rehab (if you don't need to go to a dedicated rehab ward).

We will also provide people to come and administer intravenous antibiotics at your home if your course of medications is going to require a long time and your are otherwise well. We also provide people to come and give injections (ie anticoagulants if you cannot self inject).

How much does it cost you? Why its FREE. Heck its cheaper to treat such patients in their home rather than taking up a hospital bed, so generally the health system is happy to do this.

4) the Government subsidises medications.

If you are an inpatient, the hospital will provide discharge medications. Where I work the general policy is 5 days. Exceptions include antibiotics where we generally prescribe the whole course. This is FREE if you are willing to wait for our pharmacy to dispense it. Keep in mind its not like a private pharmacy as they have to dispense for lots of patients so you may wait an hour or so.

In the Emergency department they will also provide some medications (eg anti-inflammatories, simple analgesics, antibiotics) FREE in major hospitals and in peripheral (its heavily subsidised, they send the bill after). This varies between hospitals.

Sometimes we even give the five days supply of inpatients medications which they are normally on (ie medications not related to this particular admission) FREE. I personally make it a policy of only doing this if they just so happen to run out (but lets face it, I am not going to know if they lied to me). This gives them time to see their GP for the regular script, and also roughly about the time they need for GP follow up on most illnesses.

If you get a script from a GP the cost of medications is subsidised. It will be more difficult as you get older and end up on multiple medications. But if you don't take your heart medications because of the cost and come back into the hospital with angina, yes we still will treat you and it won't cost you anything. And no, I am not joking, this is really a patient I have seen.

5) If you come into hospital and just so happen to be homeless, sometimes our social workers can even find you temporary accomodation. Yes, we really are that good. The accomodation isn't free, but I believe its at decent rates. The service of finding it for you on such short notice while you are too sick to do it yourself is of course, FREE. Before someone starts going yeah, when was the last time this happen to a patient I have seen, I would say last week.

In general you shouldn't be taking up an ACUTE hospital bed just because of social issues.

And while we are on what the social worker can do, Australia provides various home services (subsidised) which our friendly hospital social worker can find for you.

So to conclude, I am very curious about pensioner's hospital bills, since Australia's health system provides so much subsidisation. I find in incredulous that pensioners somehow have to scrape food from dustbins even if they have medical problems? WTF?

[loomer]

Unfortunately, Mr Friendly Guy, not every hospital is as well funded as yours. The local one is incredibly badly funded and mismanaged. While it remains free, the quality of care is still quite low there.

This is just an aside, your points still stand, even here.

[Lusankya]

1) Australia's health system will provide for them if they need to turn up to the emergency department. So if they cannot afford a General Practitioner (whose charges are subsidised any way by the government) they always have this recourse.

Just be aware that if its a minor complaint (ie one a GP could deal with real quick) you might have to wait since the Doctors there will prioritise with sicker patients first.

Just a note here, if you go to a doctor who bulk bills (and they're not that uncommon), going to a doctor costs somewhere in the vicinity of $0. People who say they can't afford to go to the doctor are full of shit.

[Korto]

I lived ten years on the bloody dole, something that right now is a grand total of $218.50 a week (base single rate).

I'm sorry to hear that, what kept you on the dole, sickness/injury?

I wish. Then I would have a decent answer for perfectly reasonable questions like that. The truth is more prosaic. Possibly pathetic.
I left school young and optimistic (cue jingly music, birds, blue skies, everything rosy), confident of getting a job in reasonable time. Never had any trouble in school, I had good marks, no worries. And I looked. I looked for apprenticeships, traineeships, labouring, I chased up every lead. Over time, my enthusiasm waned, and I stopped looking so hard. I was getting a collection of rejection letters, and they were depressing. More time went by, and I was looking less and less. Finally, after about two years, I gave up and went to Uni instead.
Unfortunately, while I had the head for uni, I didn't have the heart, and I dropped out in the second year to go back on the dole, but didn't go back to looking for work.
I had given up.

The turnaround happened for the most eye-rolling of reasons. I met a girl. Met a girl, we got serious, and then I re-examined and decided that I had to set a better example for our children (I set great store in the importance of examples, do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do seldom works). So we decided that if nobody was going to give us a job, we'd give ourselves a job and start our own business. I had conceived this interest in metal casting (foundry) work. First thing we did was go to TAFE to take a small business course and a foundry course, which I then repeated (more to learn, skills to hone), and then re-re-enrolled at the start of the next year; when on the first night I got a phone call from the teacher of the course saying that the class wouldn't be on that night as the foundryman had gotten another job, and, as an afterthought, he asked me if I would like the job?
Incidentally, at the time of the phone call, I was sitting on my arse playing a computer game, so just goes to show, you want a job, just sit on your arse and play computer games.

In hindsight, when I was looking for a job was probably during Keating's "Recession we had to have", and youth unemployment, particularly around here, has always been high. When I got the job was, of course, during the present boom.

Hey, Korto? Fuck you, I'm a pensioner.

Disability. I can't work a proper job because of my health issues (specifically, the allergies, my blood infection and long-term antibiotic use for such which means I get burnt by the sun incredibly easily and my immune system is basically dead, my asthma, and my anxiety issues).

My apologies, I wasn't meaning to include specialist pensions like disability (didn't think of them, actually), where there may likely be circumstances I know little about. I was referring to the aged pension, and most particularly aged pensioners full of vim and vigour enough to strip off their clothing in the middle of the street. My words were too all-inclusive.

Incidentally, I'm with you on the clothing. Pretty much word for word. I got hand-me-downs and told the family that yes, I really did want socks and underwear for Christmas.

...
I don't actually begrudge aged pensioners the money they get. I don't begrudge them the services to support them in their old age (fully support them, actually, it's what a caring society should do). What pisses me off is when the teacher's pet of the social security world, that not only gets paid 25% more a week, but numerous allowances, discounts, and special payments on top of that, marches down the fucking street complaining they're not getting enough. And everybody bloody agreeing with them!

[weemadando]

I don't actually begrudge aged pensioners the money they get. I don't begrudge them the services to support them in their old age (fully support them, actually, it's what a caring society should do). What pisses me off is when the teacher's pet of the social security world, that not only gets paid 25% more a week, but numerous allowances, discounts, and special payments on top of that, marches down the fucking street complaining they're not getting enough. And everybody bloody agreeing with them!

Actually Korto, all Australian pensions are paid on the same rate with the same tests (with, IIRC the exception of the extended curtilage provisions). So Age Pension, Carer Payment, Disability Support Pension and Parenting Payment (Single) all have the same rate and income and asset tests.

Each also has their own special bonuses and most also have regular bonuses.

The problem is that you've made the same mistake that politicians always make, in assuming that each payment has a separate piece of legislation pertaining to it. Which they don't. So when someone gets on their high horse over how tough the age pensioners have it and decide to change the income and asset tests for that, they are in fact changing it for all pension type payments.

Australia needs to have it's social security law scrapped and completely re-written. I work with it every day and it's a morass of loop-holes, dead-ends, grand-father provisions and poorly implemented publicity stunts.

[mr friendly guy]

1) Australia's health system will provide for them if they need to turn up to the emergency department. So if they cannot afford a General Practitioner (whose charges are subsidised any way by the government) they always have this recourse.

Just be aware that if its a minor complaint (ie one a GP could deal with real quick) you might have to wait since the Doctors there will prioritise with sicker patients first.

Just a note here, if you go to a doctor who bulk bills (and they're not that uncommon), going to a doctor costs somewhere in the vicinity of $0. People who say they can't afford to go to the doctor are full of shit.

You may very well be right. My google-fu is weak owing to tiredness, however in August 2003 68.5% of all GP services were bulked billed, while 67.2% of all services were bulked billed (includes specialists etc).

The data is about 5 years out of date, but I do remember initiatives by the new Rudd Government (or was that just election promises) to try and increase bulk billing.

[bobalot]

To be honest, the biggest welfare problem is the growth of middle class welfare.

$3000 baby bonus? Not means tested.

Family B benefits ? (I think that's the name) Not means tested.

Reworked super system? Good for older middle class people. Completely unfeasible in the long term. But hey, anything for the baby boomers!

The list of un-means tested entitlements goes on.

It was always my biggest gripe about the Howard government. They were never great economic managers. They were simply riding off earlier reforms and the mining boom. Instead of acting responsibly and saving/investing for the future, they expanded middle class welfare to an enormous level. Now we have the problems of skills shortages, infrastructure bottlenecks and a large group of financially well off people who feel entitled to a hand out. Thanks, John!

The Rudd government tried to means test so that people earning over $150k per household* are not eligible for these handouts and what happens? The newspapers have a field day, days after days of call back radio full of whingers who feel they 'deserve' the money and it goes on and on.

To be honest, you gotta feel for the government, if they want to do anything remotely responsible, people whinge like there is no tomorrow.

We used to call the English whinging poms, what hypocrites we have become.


* As I understand it the calculation is on the primary earner, so the combined income maybe actually greater.

[Lusankya]

You may very well be right. My google-fu is weak owing to tiredness, however in August 2003 68.5% of all GP services were bulked billed, while 67.2% of all services were bulked billed (includes specialists etc).

The data is about 5 years out of date, but I do remember initiatives by the new Rudd Government (or was that just election promises) to try and increase bulk billing.

Well, availability depends on area, but if you're in fucking Salisbury or whatever other bogan shithole you might choose to live in, of course you can find doctors who bulk bill. And if you live somewhere where there isn't good access to bulk billing doctors and can't afford your doctor's visits, then maybe you should downgrade to a cheaper house.The main issue then is specialists, but it's not as though they don't bulk bill if the patient can't afford to pay.

[mr friendly guy]

I think it was Stark who mentioned it previously, who is going to be targeted most by the baby bonus? Why its the poorer people who are going to be more likely to struggle financially when raising their kids.

Don't we say to fathers who don't want to pay child support, if you can't support a kid don't have one? Why the hell then are we giving money to people to have kids? If you can afford one, you don't need the bonus, and if you can't afford to support a kid, why are we encouraging you to have one?

What extrenuating social circumstance is there to drive such a policy? Supposedly by getting up our fertility rate, in the future we would be able to help deal with the effects of our greying population. In other words, we pay welfare to get more workers to help pay even more welfare. Why? We should start cutting down welfare to those who really need it, and encourage people to think about their finances for the future so when they retire, the government doesn't have to support them more than the usual(ie medical and other governmental services).

The thing is I can easily imagine the temptation for middle class people to say fuck it, if the baby bonus is also going to people who couldn't afford to raise one anyway, at least I get a piece of the pie.

Axis of Awesine had it right

John Howard : But I got a great a plan, Australia lets make babies, make a smooth 4 grand.

That was a hallmark of Howard's economic management. Lets bribe the electorate. I hear 34 billion dollars worth of tax cuts might get the Liberals votes before Labor countered with their own tax cuts. Never mind that it just feeds inflation. Although on second thought, yeah lets drive up inflation, at least I will get more money in bank interest and I be in a good position when house prices start plummeting because people can't pay their mortgage.

Well, availability depends on area, but if you're in fucking Salisbury or whatever other bogan shithole you might choose to live in, of course you can find doctors who bulk bill. And if you live somewhere where there isn't good access to bulk billing doctors and can't afford your doctor's visits, then maybe you should downgrade to a cheaper house.The main issue then is specialists, but it's not as though they don't bulk bill if the patient can't afford to pay.

Not to mention that GPs can also simply refer you to hospital outpatient clinics. There are specialists there as well, and frankly a lot of them work both in the public and private system.