Ministers could pay £500 to everyone with Covid in England

[Mitz]

There's got to me some middle ground between doshing out lolly to everyone and the current system where 75% of the people who genuinely need it don't qualify.

You wouldn't think it that hard, would you?

Simple means test? Don't simply go by income but by disposable income? Disqualify if savings above X? Better to set it slightly high so a few people who don't need it get it rather than a few who do not getting it.

Above my pay grade but you'd think it's achievable.

 

[bergkamp]

On what grounds?

So the solution is to give £500 to every single UK resident who tests positive regardless of their financial status?

So we can then have someone post what cunts the government are for giving money to people who don't need it.

The solution to helping more people who genuinely need it isn't by giving money to more people who genuinely don't need it.

Which is obviously why this proposal was never acted on if it was ever really taken seriously by those who actually make real life decisions.

Helping those who need it should be the priority. But not by burning money and giving it to people who don't need it at all.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55727196

IM not saying give it to everyone , I'm lucky could still pay my bills for a while if I'm off as my Mrs earns as well , but how many people are going to work when they should be isolating because they just can't afford to be off work ?
Like has been said if your on the dole , a pensioner or are wealthy a positive test or being told to isolate is not going to make any difference to your outgoings but for someone who works on a low income basically losing two weeks wages could have serious repercussions.
It wouldn't be hard to replace ssp with actual sick pay for two weeks rather than a blanket 500 . If you want people to stay at home you got to give them a income

 

[Mitz]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55727196

IM not saying give it to everyone , I'm lucky could still pay my bills for a while if I'm off as my Mrs earns as well , but how many people are going to work when they should be isolating because they just can't afford to be off work ?
Like has been said if your on the dole , a pensioner or are wealthy a positive test or being told to isolate is not going to make any difference to your outgoings but for someone who works on a low income basically losing two weeks wages could have serious repercussions.
It wouldn't be hard to replace ssp with actual sick pay for two weeks rather than a blanket 500 . If you want people to stay at home you got to give them a income

I agree wholeheartedly. That's why these kinds of proposals are thought up in the first place. As one article posted earlier stated; only a small percentage of people isolate properly. Don't know if the figure quoted is accurate but it's unquestionable that people who should isolate don't because they can't afford to. They should absolutely 100% be supported so that they can isolate and not have to worry about the financial impact of doing so.

All I'm saying is the answer is not to blanket pay every person who tests positive as suggested by the OP link and the answer also sure as hell is not to do nothing out of a purely hypothetical fear that people are going to go out and intentionally catch covid just for a measly £500 payday.

Support needs to be targeted at the people who need it. The current setup clearly needs fixing. Just not by blanket paying every positive person in the country.

I think you'll find we actually agree on most of this stuff.

 

["Misfit"]

Exactly - don’t think it wouldn’t matter who’s in at this time - they cAnt do right for doing wrong.

this seems like quite a good scheme to me.

I agree in theory it is a good scheme
but it is open to abuse.

 

[ZT]

I agree in theory it is a good scheme
but it is open to abuse.

It’s all open to abuse - the system always gets abused by the few whatever.

 

[zouzounaki]

Truth is there are some who want to crucify this government regardless of what they do or don't do. IMHO.

yes, there are a lot of us, in fact.

 

[zouzounaki]

It wouldn't be hard to replace ssp with actual sick pay for two weeks rather than a blanket 500

this seems like a better solution.

 

[Mitz]

yes, there are a lot of us, in fact.

I wouldn't say a lot but there's definitely a few. Most of those from north of the border fit this category. Tories don't go down well in Scotland these days period.

 

[zouzounaki]

I wouldn't say a lot but there's definitely a few. Most of those from north of the border fit this category. Tories don't go down well in Scotland these days period.

many of us agree that nye bevan was right about them.

 

[Mitz]

many of us agree that nye bevan was right about them.

Probably a bit unlikely to find any ex miner Labour politician with warm words about the Tories at any point in history.

Never heard of him tho bar a quick google search. I'm all ears if you wanna tell me what he was right about, Zou?