What does this have to do with the topic though? Are you saying housebound people get too much money? And so what if they buy entertainment from abroad - doesn’t everyone these days? Should they have to stare at a blank wall all day? They are still contributing to the British economy by buying their food and utilities here, and as stated, many actually pay rent. To even bring up the topic of housebound people not contributing enough to the economy by supposedly spending money abroad is such a capitalist mindset - why do disabled people need to justify their existence and their pittance in payments by contributing to the economy anyway?

Not everyone who claims disability is claiming for the “can’t walk 50 metres” part. Many people on disability work full time even, a far cry from never leaving the house. Many have daily hospital appointments. In other words, many have substantial travel costs. Many people, for various reasons, aren’t eligible for housing benefit and have to pay their rent themselves out of their UC and PIP. Your experience of disability isn’t the same as everyone else’s. Many have nothing left over after paying their basic costs, many don’t even have enough for the basics. Also the lowest rate of PIP is £114 a month, not £300.

I’m not sure why you’re trying to make being disabled and living on benefits easier than it actually is.

I’d say the same thing happens with the entire structure of disability payments. Instead of simply accepting a letter from your doctor to prove your disability, they’ve built this insane system of assessors and regular assessments, employing over half a million people (in the UK), to harrass each disabled person every couple of years to decide whether they should still get the means of support necessary to their survival. Reject a large proportion of the claims, so the disabled person has to go through appeals, and tribunals, which create even more jobs.

How much do you think disabled people get? Even when I’m in receipt of benefits, its just enough to pay the bills. ie - utilities, rent, food and basic clothes.

Quotes from the article:

*ministers were planning billions in cuts to disability benefits in an attempt to calm market nerves over economic plans.

The Chancellor has pledged to stick to Tory plans to cut £3 billion from incapacity benefits by 2028.

Labour must carry out a root-and-branch overhaul of the incapacity benefits system if it is to rein in rising heath-related welfare spending, it added.*

You bring up an important point that I don’t see talked about enough. Disabled people don’t have marriage equality for this reason.

Also disabled people create jobs for other people like nurses, carers, people who make and install mobility aids, etc.

They only want the population of workers to grow, they want to eradicate all non-workers.

The removal of the winter fuel payments affected many other low income people. For example, twice a year for the past few years, local councils have been giving cost of living/hardship payments to people on low incomes. My local council was meant to give us £100 each this winter. I was really relying on that for basics like food. However, because of the government withdrawing the winter fuel payments to the elderly, my local council decided to spend all of this year’s hardship payments on the elderly, to compensate them for the loss of the winter fuel payment, leaving nothing for other low income and disabled people like me. So because of the government’s decision to take away elderly people’s winter fuel payments, I now get nothing.

Doctors really only care about their paycheque. They don’t care if a patient is suffering, they will do the bare minimum they can to get paid. It took 3.5 years for my cancer to be diagnosed, they refused to do any tests and kept fobbing me off saying it’s depression, ME, or I’m just a hypochondriac. If I’d had a faster-growing cancer, I’d be dead now (and probably better off). Even now, most medical professionals even refuse to write me a letter of support for my benefit appeal. Not because they don’t believe I’m disabled, I mean they’re the doctors who treat my issues, but just because “We don’t do that.” They don’t care if I end up starving and homeless. They aren’t obliged to write me a letter to get their paycheque, so they don’t write one. If each of the medics who treats me was willing to write me a letter, I could have had 7 letters to help my claim and subsequent appeal. My GP and therapist (for all she’s a shit therapist at least she did this one useful thing) were the only ones who wrote a decent letter. My ophthalmologist wrote an OK one, and after much begging my physiotherapist wrote a shitty, useless one. The stroke doctor, oncologist and endocrinologist, none of them will write one. “We don’t do that, ask your GP!” No matter that the more letters of support I can get the more chance I have of winning. If I lose, then I’m on the streets or in some shitty homeless shelter while in the middle of cancer treatment and recovering from a stroke. They just Do. Not. Care. It doesn’t affect them so I can go and F myself. It wouldn’t take a minute for them to type up a quick letter confirming my diagnosis and how it affects me but no.

And for all she wrote me a letter, my therapist is so awful that because I missed some of her stupid therapy sessions due to my health problems, she says she’s going to let the DWP know I didn’t come to all the sessions, knowing full well this could affect my appeal and leave me homeless and destitute.