What benefits does DLA entitle you to?
Poor grammar apart (if you’re wondering – To which benefit does DLA entitle you?), this question from my search engine section represents a typical misunderstanding of the benefits system – in essence, there is no entitlement, per se, to anything.
For example, if you have, let’s say, COPD, that doesn’t entitle you to anything at all, not even free prescriptions. It entitles you to cough up your internal organs, that’s about all (er, you can’t actually do that, it just feels as if you are – don’t panic!). When it comes to disability benefits, the word entitlement doesn’t exist in the lexicography of the Department of Work and Pensions.
You are able to apply for benefits based on whatever ails you, and depending on the degree of disability, you may or may not get them. See this post, and the two links contained therein.
Once you successfully claim benefits, you may think your battle is over, which would be very naïve, because your case can be reviewed at any time.
And if you have, for example, DLA, and you think your condition warrants an increase, then do think twice, because you can wind up worse off. Check the comment by Florence Graham on this post (scroll right down). Truly disgraceful and seriously scary.
To get back to the original question, having DLA doesn’t give you any entitlement to other benefits. Incapacity Benefit does (Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit – but still, not free scrips. Presumably, ESA will have the same fringe benefits as IB.
The reason for that is that IB is directly linked to your ability to work, while DLA isn’t. DLA is about your need for mobility and care (embracing, as it does, the old Mobility and Attendance allowances, as least for the under 65s. Over 65 you have to apply for Attendance Allowance, not DLA. No mobility component you’ll notice. I’d love to know what DWP troll (this pre-dates the DWP, but it’s the same people), decided that if you’re over 65 you won’t want to go anywhere, especially when old people now are more active than they’ve ever been. It’s sheer, penny-pinching lunacy, and having a disability is nor reason for trapping someone at home because of their age, which is precisely what this policy does, and it needs to be changed. Don’t hold you breath, though. And don’t bank on the coming Tory government being any less hostile towards the disabled. They won’t be.
And that’s something that baffles me. Gordon Brown has a disabled son, and yet he’s embracing every lunatic scheme for persecuting the sick and disabled that James Purnell (and his recently-departed diabolic familiar David Freud), put forward. And David Cameron, who has just lost his disabled son (tragic, on a personal level, but the suck-ass reaction from the media would make you think an elder statesman, or a member of the royal family, had died), is no better than Brown on this subject. There’s not, as far as I know, a single MP who has had the balls to speak out against the demonic, three-headed PurnellBrownFreud beast as it rampaged all over our civil and human rights.
But wait, I was wrong – DLA does entitle you to something after all. It entitle you to be fucked-over by the government at every opportunity.
Have a nice day!
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Footnote: This was written to support my claim in my post Developing your blog writing style that it’s possible to get 500 words out of the most unpromising material. To be exact, and excluding this para, 564 words.
