Cabinet plans to cost people with disabilities up to €300 extra per month: Nibud
Several of the new Cabinet’s plans will make life significantly more expensive for people with a disability or chronic illness, according to calculations by budget institute Nibud. “If households make use of multiple schemes that are going to change, that cost increase can rise to around €300 per month, or well over €3,500 per year,” said Nibud director Mattias Gijsbertsen.
The problem does not lie in a single policy change, but in a series of changes that reinforce each other, Nibud said. For example, some plans limit or scrap the scheme that allows people to deduct healthcare costs from their taxable income. As a result, their income appears higher because they cannot deduct their high healthcare costs for aids and medicine. And that, in turn, means that they may receive less healthcare allowance.
People with a chronic illness or disability also may have to pay more for care and support through the WMO benefit, because the personal contribution depends on income. If that income is registered as higher with the Tax Authority because of lower deductions, the personal contribution will increase.
So people will lose money due to reduced tax benefits while paying more for support, without their income or the care they receive actually changing. According to Nibud, these effects reinforce each other, making the financial consequences greater than if measures were viewed separately.
“The Nibud study shows that people are falling far behind,” Deborah Lauria of the advocacy organization Ieder(in) told NU.nl. According to her, this could lead to people not receiving the care they need. “These people are already dealing with high healthcare costs and are therefore struggling to make ends meet. This will lead to people avoiding or postponing care.”
The Cabinet has said that it intends to compensate people with a disability or chronic illness, but how and to what extent is not yet clear.
