Is ending the triple lock to fund a care service fair....

[mids2019]

To me this is actually not a hugely left wing proposal as middle classes with occupational and private pensions will not notice the reduced increases in state pension significantly.

However poorer pensioners with little other pension provision may be impacted a lot to essentially fund a care service that will be disprotioanrly help the middle classes as their life expectancy is greater.

Is it fair that our poorest pensioners get less to support a care service which would mean a millionaire pensioner would not nèed to sell their assets to access it?

Need to stop paying PIP to those that don't actually need it. I know people who claim it, walk 15 miles without breaking a sweat and play sports. Bloody madness.

No I want it there when I am pension age
This govt want to screw old people to pay for immigrants and people who have no job but a load of kids or who are too lazy "anxious " to bother to work and p[once off us

Keep the triple lock for the state pension. Freeze pension credit and UC. Let's stop rewarding indolence.

Except they were elected on a Manifesto that stated "Labour will retain the triple lock for the state pension."

For them to retain any shred of credibility they need to honour this, or pay the price at the next election.

I'm a pensioner and think the triple lock needs to go and price inflation protection remain too be fair to people working who are struggling. Poor pensioners can claim additional benefits.

This post is spot on. I hope when they do the calculations for this they include the extra they're going to have to find when all the people looking after their relatives dump that care onto tax payers when they know their inheritance is secure.

I have voted Labour all my life, like my Mum and Dad. I want them gone Burnham, Mahmood, Raynor and co. God knows what will replace them. Ed on his hobbyhorse, frog face, bin face, Polanski and co or the bloody Tories. We are doomed, aren't we?

Agree
Surest way to lose the next election
Interesting that its not going to be during this run but after the next election
Its almost like AB is expecting to lose...

I think pensioners should have to pay National insurance.

There needs to be state owned and managed care and nursing homes and carers employed directly by the state. At the moment, the country and individuals are just paying directly into the profits of care companies.

Care is extortionate. I don't think people realise how much it costs and how very quickly, even a rich pensioner's, wealth disappears if they require care in old age. But it's not the carers who get the money and it's not the actual care that costs. It's profits.

As well as covering or helping with care costs, a National Care Service needs to provide ongoing support for family (unpaid) carers. At the moment, you get a dementia diagnosis and then are left to it with no help from the state/NHS and no more appointments or anyone to support you are getting help from. A National Dementia service where you can make appointments and get advice and help as the disease progresses would be invaluable.

I am nearly 70, I am tempted to go back to work part-time. Start cutting the state pension and that's what we will start doing and also younger older people won't retire. This will just add to youth unemployment.

This is exactly right. I think we struggle to understand that in real terms we are getting poorer as a country and we have an aging population. Many really can't comprehend that the triple lock and our welfare system as a whole is unsustainable. It just doesn't compute with some people who would rather bring the whole economy down and bring in anti growth measures that adversely impact everyone rather than accept we need to start making some very difficult decisions. This includes the poor who will not be exempt from the cuts.

Eh? You can only get Pension Credit at state retirement age.

People getting pension credit haven't worked for 35 years, that's why they get it

Not true. They might have opted out of SERPs, worked for a while abroad, not claimed CB so don’t have a full record etc etc and therefore not built up a full state pension entitlement. Pension Credit ‘tops up’ a lower state pension.

Sharon Graham has something to say about the triple lock, calling it ‘electoral suicide’.

The general secretary of the Unite trade union, warned any plans to remove the triple lock would be “morally wrong”.

Ms Graham told the BBC’s Today programme: “Going to a group of people who are getting around £12,500 a year, in order to pay for it [the social care plan], to take their security from them, is wrong, I think it’s morally wrong.

I think a 10% IHT for all estates irrespective of size with no loopholes (perhaps not farmers) should be costed - and just have the state pension rise with inflation. See if the numbers work.

And carers should be paid and trained properly so that it’s a more appealing job. Proper breaks, proper ratios of staff to patients.

it may end up being 15% but if you are so rich you want to pay more for something different go ahead but those who can’t afford to spend £1500 a week will be contributing with what they have left and so will those paying more. And they won’t have 40% taken off them so they won’t give it away to avoid IHT as it wouldn’t be worth it.

This. I’m not a millionaire but have worked for 45 years having had no benefits at all (including maternity or child maintenance) and still have my nose to the grindstone.

Tops it up to almost the full state pension.

Get rid of the triple lock and link pensions to earnings- this is fairer all round. Use the money saved to fund training and housebuilding to support young people and young families. Introduce an IHT levy to pay for care costs.

Yes. I’m sick of the entitlement of pensioners.

I'm sick of the entitlement of people who don't want to work. Nah mate, I ain't getting out of bed for less than 20 quid an hour.

Also sick of the entitlement of people who work minimal hours and claim UC top-ups.

He has already said that he will stick to the Manifesto as published prior to the last GE so no change at all until the next GE/ Manifesto.

Talk of changes to the SP is all being whipped up by his opponents, mainly in the media.

Why don't we wait at least until this afternoon when he makes his speech?

I’ve worked since age 13. I work in the NHS for under £13 an hour.

Then there will be a choice just as there is with health care. I can’t imagine that you or I would use it. The beneficiaries would be people who can’t get the care they need because council budgets won’t stretch that far. Effectively now it’s rationed, the aim is to stop that.

Improvements in medicine now mean that a lot of people live on becoming increasingly frail. Diseases which killed people speedily (eg pneumonia used to be known as The Widow's Friend) are now routinely treated. We are living too long.

Beyond a certain age (say 75) or when the elderly patient no longer has capacity the default should be to not treat. Immediate comfort should be the overriding consideration.

My elderly DM has advanced vascular dementia. Bedbound, doubly incontinent, no idea who she is let alone anyone else, unable to do anything for herself. But each chest infection still gets treated with ABs because since Shipman and the Liverpool Pathway scandal no HCP has the confidence to say 'enough is enough, let this poor woman die'.

She didnt have an advanced directive as I dont think she understood that this could happen to her. The person she was would be mortified by her total loss of dignity.

So before we start looking at 'free' care we need to look at why care is needed. Prolong healthy life not extended frailty.