Thanks for that site koo--Barstards--they give with one hand and take away with the other

Personally I think they all have far too much money and are out of touch - and that includes the bureaucrats like Ken Henry too - all overpaid and left wingers with no regard for the fact that those living today on the measly pension and fragile actually built this country up to the point that everyone fleeing poverty wants to come here and get a handout.



Problem for seniors is no government has any respect for the elderly - lump us in with the others on pensions -unmarried mums and some on disability who can get work - and then discriminate against the married ones for living together! Okay to live with another pensioner and share expenses - but not legally married. Also use that to bump up the number of pensions.



Now a pension was always only meant for those too old to work.



Not today seemingly and therein lies the problem.



If they half the concession for these operations then they are being completely stupid as it is far more costly to have to look after a blind person in a retirement home than to pay the co payment to have the operation and stay home looking after themselves.



Plus add to the waiting lists for public hospitals.



Band aid cost cutting if they need to cut costs



Cut these for a start.



Baby Bonus.

Tax Benefits for the middle class.

Immigration huge saving here.



and the list goes on........

Thanks for that site koo--Barstards--they give with one hand and take away with the other



Exactly, PlanB.

This is just one area where this is happening.

The government should have stuck to their original plan re the pension rises, imo. The only reason the rises were granted before the budget, is because Rudd wanted to look good in the face of all the publicity at the time, and all the rubbish about being grateful for small mercies that I saw here and other forums was naive to say the least.

He should have held his ground and waited till next year's budget, as was his original intention.

But he panicked and wanted to appear caring..plain and simple...the financial crisis panicked him, even though Peter Costello , and many economic experts warned the Australia public of imminent disaster.

The consequence of Rudd's panic is that we as a nation are bequeathing the biggest debt in history to the next few generations, and in the meantime, he is trying desperately to minimise the effects of his actions, by the bandaid approaches such as the cataract surgery rebate.

Because this type of bandaid fix affects only a few people here and there, all of this goes unnoticed by the majority of the population, who get their political news from the morning breakfast programs, and twitter.

I actually saw and heard Rudd, giggle in Parliament the other day, and say"I love Twitter". Help!

Yes koko and as we won't get the rise till about the 4th Oct--thats the pension day for me anyway--by the time we get it it is more than already gone.



BTW I am STILL awaiting a reply from John Della Bosca--(health minister in NSW--) I have written 3 emails and 2 letters (snail mail) and have also been onto other Ministers and been given the run around--they give me a phone number that is an STD call--I have to pay a heap for those through the day--you would think at tlest there would be a 1300 or and 1800 number for people to use.

The comments about the reduction in the Medicare rebate for cataract surgery have raised some interesting comments by Koko, Big Val,Plan B.

I fully agree the politicians are out of touch and earn too much money and do not have any idea of what is like for the battlers.

There are a couple of points I disagree with however and they are- not all unmarried mums have kids just to get the pension, some are widows and as there is no widow pension if they have kids that is the only reason they get a pension, some are unmarried mums through being raped, yes some are unmarried mums through both the girl and the boy not taking the right precautions (although most of them are not 100% foolproof).

Of course you do get ones who have kids just to get the money and I do not have an answer as to how you would stop that without unfairly punishing those who do not.

In relation to the comment about those on the disability pension and can get work, it does not happen as easily as you think.

When my husband was alive, in spite of his health problems, he could not get a disability pension , however when he went for different jobs the forms always asked if you had any disabilities or ongoing health problems and if you filled in that you did inevitably he did not get the job.

If he did not fill in the details and then got crook and ended up off work or in hospital when he went back to work he got put off and the company got around the law of not being able to discriminate by saying there was not enough work, last on first off, wait two weeks and then hire some one else.

In closing the age pension was brought in when the life expectancy of men and women was a lot lower and usually by the age of 60 people needed to retire because the expectation was that they only had about 10 or so years left before most died.

There have nearly always been other pensions or benefits for other things but sometimes called by different names and depending on who was in power they were either started, stopped or changed to needing different criteria to get the benefit.