Friday, November 21, 2008

No light at the end of the tunnel

Okay, a quick summary.

I've just been quoted a huge amount of money for urgent medical treatment which I can't afford to pay because all my savings and every penny I can save in the next few months is going to pay my tax bill so some benefit scrounging scum can have the same treatment for free.

That's the reality of live in Brown's Britain. And it will be the same in Cameron's Britain or Clegg's Britain.

I really haven't been so scared and desolate in a long time. I can't afford £800 for specialist root canal treatment to remove an infection which is eating away at my jawbone. Because it's the second time around it only has a 60-70% chance of success so there's another huge risk that should that not work I'll have to fork our thousands of pounds to have a replacement tooth fitted, should I choose not to have a large gap in my mouth like some extra in Eastenders.

I've written to the Health Secretary and copied in the Prime Minister and my MP (who is a good bloke who actually cares about his constituents which is probably why the Tory party were allegedly trying to replace him) because they really should know what a fucking mess they've made of this country and our health services. They have provided a breeding ground for lazy, stupid gangs of knuckle scrapping fools who are, day by day, proving Darwin wrong.

I had a look at the Dept of Health website to find out about NHS dentists and stumbled across this rather interesting, and yet rather unsurprising, list of people who don't have to pay for their dental treatment:

You also do not have to pay if – when the treatment starts or when you are asked to pay – you:
• are getting, or your partner is getting, Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance or Pension Credit guarantee credit
• have, or your name is on, a valid NHS tax credit exemption certificate
• have the right to full help under the NHS Low Income Scheme (i.e. you are named on a valid HC2 certificate).

Needless to say, because I have a job and work hard I am none of these things. I don't claim any benefits, I don't have children who use the state school system, I didn't use it myself because the schools in my area were terrible. The only medical treatment I've been getting recently I've had to pay for myself because the NHS doesn't cover it and my medical insurance doesn't cover it because hardly any medical policies do, what with the cost of private dental treatment being so expensive it's not financially viable for insurance companies to offer it. In fact, it's over two years worth of my premium for just the first part of my necessary treatment.

But if I didn't have a job, or had a child I would be laughing because people like me would pay for the treatment. Chances are, I'd also have a house.

How have things been allowed to get so bad? To the stage when someone who pays thousands and thousands in tax every year is sitting, sobbing, wondering how they are going to pay to ensure their jaw doesn't get eaten up?

The state of finances in this country is a mess: my loan could get called in at any time and yet my savings can vanish and from banks which I'm bankrolling through my taxes which don't really provide me with anything. I'm all in favour of a strong armed forces but even they are being sent to Iraq for a war which is illegal and unnecessary. I have never had a chance to vote on whether I want to be part of the EU and yet that costs tax payers in this country billions of pounds in direct payments without even counting the costs in loss of efficiency through excessive regulations and downright dumb laws and rulings. My food prices are higher than they should be because of the Common Agricultural Policy, my money is being wasted on an energy policy which will have the country flooded with darkness in a few years time and every nice part of the countryside covered in fucking windmills whilst the people who own the land are paid for these monstrosities sitting on their land. Council workers are being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a year to oversee failing services which allow children to be tortured and murdered, every time you move you're at risk of breaking a law and yet people who commit the worst crimes are getting sentences which in no way seem to compensate for the awful crimes they've committed and the danger to society that they are.

It seems to me that the harder you work, the more the government hates you. And I'm terrified and, more so, I'm in an awful lot of pain and in a predicament which I can't see any way out of besides not paying the rest of my tax and spending it on something I really need.

Of course, if I did that, if I spent the money I earn ensuring my physical wellbeing, then I'd be taken to court.

What a cataclysmic mess.

And what am I going to do?

15 comments:

Obnoxio The Clown said...

I feel for you babe.

Don't suppose you've got an un-maxed credit card? Can you not get HMRC to take your tax out of your tax code next year or do you not do PAYE?

If you aren't doing PAYE, can you not somehow get the medical expense "on the company", or get a loan "on the company"?

Trixy said...

I do do PAYE now, but for what. Really? What the fuck do I get for it, apart from seeing this country disintegrate as we pay people to do fuck all?

I've paid my tax and I want some of it back for the treatment I need. Surely that's not too much to ask?

What? Oh; it is too much to ask. Funny, that.

Obnoxio The Clown said...

On my blog, jacob marley has left a new comment on your post "Guaranteed to make you wilt!":

Obonoxio

I read Trixie's latest post. I can't reply direct as you have to register to comment on her blog and I am don't do registering for anything being both libertarian and paranoid. My email isn't working and I wonder if you pass on the message I tried to send:

"Christmas is coming and I can send 100 pounds to get you started if you can publish or send a "safe" address, safe being an address other than your own that the money can be safely sent to."

I could probably do the same.

wv: kindege -- the kindege of strangers? :o)

Trixy said...

Oh my, that's so lovely.

Trying to think of an address, though!

Kindage is a new word: Kindness in the face of government incompetence.

:o)

Brian said...

Why not put a Paypal button in your sidebar for donations to the Trixy Toothypeg Fund?

James Higham said...

Trixy, I started to write this here but will email you instead.

Obnoxio The Clown said...

DK has fired up PayPal ... I'm sure you must be at least halfway there by now. :o)

Hope you get sorted!

Anonymous said...

Try one of the teaching hospital dental schools. They certainly used to provide free treatment for patients, and I think they still do. I used to have all my dentisty, such as it was, done by students at Guys

Of course, this means being treated by students BUT in fact you usually end up getting state of the art treatment. Any dental work done is checked at each stage by one of the professors/lecturers. The major problem is time - you have to wait for the work to be checked.

This is on Kings College site:

Patient care

The Dental Institute, in partnership with the Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospitals NHS Foundation Trusts delivers high quality dental care to patients who not only benefit from new techniques and treatment, but also help researchers to take new ideas forward into mainstream clinical practice.

Dental care is available through our partner NHS Foundation Trusts. Student dentists give treatment as part of their training. This is offered free of charge to those deemed appropriate to be seen by students under supervision.

For further information please click on the links below:

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust



John

101 said...

So you can afford private education and private medical insurance but you are whinging about £800 of dentistry bills. My heart bleeds.

Trixy said...

LB, it's completely the wrong way round.

Mark: No, I don't pay school fees. My parents paid for me and for you and your children to go to school. And of course when I went to uni my friend got a full loan which she put into a bank account, earned lots of interest and bought a car. I had 2 jobs instead.

Medical insurance because I was self employed and couldn't afford to risk an NHS waiting list which is at the expense of being unable to go out very often and when I was unemployed I didn't claim benefits but I lived off my savings. Of course, if I had claimed and been rather blood thirsty when I'd gone to the dentist the first time round I wouldn't be having dentist bills. Because that's the point I'm trying to make: I've paid thousands in tax and I'm finding it pretty hard to come up with examples of how I get much of it back.

Because I'm a nice person, I'll help you clean up after your messy organs.

Socrates said...

"Of course, if I did that, if I spent the money I earn ensuring my physical wellbeing, then I'd be taken to court.

What a cataclysmic mess.

And what am I going to do?"

Go begging in public for money? Like the benefit scrounging scum, you so clearly despise?

I'll be l;etting the Inland Revenue know about your extra source of income, so don't be forgetting to declare it now, will you Sexy Girl?

Curmudgeon said...

I have a lot of time for the bloggers who have supported this. But I really fail to see why you can't get this work done on the NHS. Is it not possible to go via your GP rather than a dentist?

And shouldn't anyone even in fairly lowly employment have managed to build up £800 of savings after a year or two?

Trixy said...

Awe honey; do you feel better after that?

Anonymous said...

Trixy,

I had a root canal go bad. I wasn't covered by my dental insurance, but I was able to go to my local hospital to have the tooth extracted by the NHS.

Have you asked to be referred by your GP for this, rather than your dentist?

Have you offered your body to medical science? I mean, of course, asking the dental medical schools if they want you as a guinea pig?

It is crap that it should come to this, but these are routes that might still be open to you.

50 Calibre said...

I suggest that you pop over to France where dental treatment is quick, affordable and a root canal job might only cost you a couple of hundred euros. Worth a thought!