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?

I don't think you understand that withdrawing or limiting treatment isn't the same as Assisted Dying. We do this already all the time. If you get sick you won't have access to the best treatment through the NHS. It is openly acknowledged that treatments can be declined on cost grounds.

Less obviously, struggling to get an appointment with a GP and large waits for screenings etc will all lead to more deaths. This isn't AD.

I appreciate some people are earning close to minimum wage/genuinely can't work for health reasons, but a fair number of households will have at least one personal pension, either through work or because people have wanted to make provision themselves, on top of household pension rather than risk struggling.

We often read on here that people won't retire unless theyve got a massive pension, but there's been a thread running this week about how many of us easily cope on less money when we retire, so if you've done the sensible thing and invested for the future, you'll cope if your state pension is a little less.

I don't tend to have any tests that the NHS offers because of this, when my time comes it comes, I don't want to be prolonged so only go to the GP if it's absolutely necessary and don't have things like flu jabs, mammograms, etc. I had the Covid jabs but only because I had to

Withdrawing treatment isn’t assisted suicide. It’s letting nature take its course. It’s why I won’t have the pneumonia vaccination because it confers lifetime immunity and I may well welcome it with open arms one day.

I think it’s correct to remove the triple lock but it won’t fund social care

The problem with the triple lock is it rises whatever happens. Pensioners therefore over time get rises well ahead of the population. Since inception this means pensions are £800 higher than they would be with just an earnings link.

The context that is left out of this discussion is that our pension in the UK is not good compared to other EU countries, coming below other western European countries in an index that compares costs of living to the state pension. Of the 14 countries above the breakeven point with the cost of living, we are 13th. Pensioners are a group where most have little or no capacity to increase their income through working, especially in the current economy.

So, not I don't think we should get rid of the triple lock. Our state pension is already pretty shit.

https://www.almondfinancial.co.uk/pension-breakeven-index-how-does-the-uk-state-pension-compare-to-the-rest-of-europe/

The government has been too cowardly to reform disability benefits to ensure they only go to those who need them. Other countries do not have the runaway disability benefits bill we have as they have a better system for assessing who actually needs it. So instead of dealing with that, the government is going with the media created fiction that the triple lock somehow means we have a generous state pension. We don't.

@dampoutside you can’t compare our state pensions to other European countries.

Ours is lower because it isn’t contribution based like many European countries but a flat rate.

Almost 70% of pensioners have a private pension, this is far higher than other countries.

Context matters

A year?

You begrudge pensioners 16 quid a week.

Why are pensioners treated as some sort of protected class? As I’ve said I work in the NHS and I’m begrudged a 20p an hour pay rise, which equates to less than £30 a month!!

How could it be a wing proposal? Every Tory government has at least considered it, and they would all like to.

A lot on here want the state pension age to be 70 and no more NHS treatment at 75. So, old age now just for the rich?

Because you can go and get another, better paid job. Pensioners can’t.

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.

I'd better start enjoying my last three years then before this informal euthanasia kicks in and my oncologist has to tell me 'sorry, no more chemo for you, you're 75.'

You do realise that 75 isn't necessarily decrepit, right?

Because if pensioners are living on state pension or that and a tiny bit of occupational pension, the inflationary increases on products and services represents significantly more of their income than even that of someone on the full time equivalent of minimum wage.

Price of a week's shopping pp, increases from £45 to £52.50. That's a more significant uncrease when one has about £275 pw than if one has £440pw.

Honestly, Gen Y/Z don't get that pensioners are old, they just think we another group who are "entitled" because they get given money, forgetting that we have worked for 35 years plus, building the society that they take for granted.

With what jobs? Where am I going to get a better paid healthcare job?

you should’ve saved more and not spent your pension on so many cruises.

And we now work to pay for your pensions and you feel entitled to more and more of our income, while also expecting us to fund the nhs and social care and all the rest!

I have never had a cruise, unless you include going from Maidenhead to Windsor on a Salters steamer.

Private pensions are higher because people in the UK need to take them out to compensate for the fact that our state pension is crap.

By your own figures, nearly one in three pensioners in the UK have not state pension are so are completely reliant on it. Others will have very small private pensions.

Nothing you have said changes the fact that our state pension is not much above cost of living.

Pensioners have little or no ability to improve their financial state unlike nearly all of the rest of the UK population. They also have higher heating costs due to being more likely to be at home and also people feel colder when they are older.

They should not be penalised when state pensions are already low. A triple lock on a low pension is still a low pension.

Gen X should have had more kids, not our fault that the numbers don't stack up any more.

They couldn’t because it was so expensive because boomers hoarded houses.

Unnecessary spending some would say! Honestly the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” generation really do seem unwilling to do just that!!

I was going to Windsor races and I lost when I got there, so you may be right.