There have been a lot of problems with the Work Capability Assessment run by companies like Atos, testing and retesting whether people are disabled enough for Employment Support Allowance (ESA), as claimaints are declared fit for work when they’re patently not. Now things are going to be made worse, as the possibility to appeal against these decisions is going to be made, both by complicating the process to do so and by stopping ESA during the appeal process, with claimants needing to apply for Job Seeksers Allowance instead:
This will mean that those appealing an ESA decision and claiming Jobseekers Allowance will be placed in a potentially fraudulent position. They will be appealing an ESA decision based on the fact they do not believe themselves able to work, and will be claiming JSA based on a claim that they are able to work.
It’s been quite clear for a while now that the current UK government is engaging in the salami slicing of welfare, discontinuing some benefit schemes, means testing others, tightening up access in general. The point in these exercises is clearly not limiting fraud or other tabloid friendly excuses, but to throw people off of welfare regardless of whether they need it or not. This has been the clearest in the way disability benefits have been handled, with no regards for the wellbeing and health of the people affected.
To put it blunty: the suicides, the unnecessary deaths of people cut off from disability benefits, the starving, that’s the system working.
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