What did carers do before CA? Where have all these disabled people come from? Well, of course the first answer is that people died. They just died! That's what happened. Or they were institutionalised and then they died.
But there are specific and discoverable reasons for the fact that there are more disabled people now, and more severely disabled people. My DP has cervical spina bifida, which is uncommon now, and was uncommon pre-1970 because neurological surgery was not advanced enough for many serious cases to survive birth. (The rate of spina bifida in the UK has fallen from 3.5 per 1000 in 1970 to 0.15 per 1000 in 1998, partly due to folate intake and partly due to screening) There's a population bulge of people in their thirties with spina bifida, born between about 1970 and 1979. No one planned for them to exist and no one knows how long they will live because there's no precedent.
Prevalence of major birth defects overall has remained stable since 1978 (US figure sorry), but outcomes are vastly improved. In 1959 the median age of survival for a person with Cystic Fibrosis was six months, in 2009 it was thirty seven. CFers are another kind of pop. bulge.
It's not true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Many people today survive cancer, and that's extraordinary and wonderful, but many people are disabled by the experience, losing mobility, major organ function, and experiencing permanent changes in the endocrine system, to name a few. The trauma of sustained illness and operations can also be mentally debilitating. If 98% of men develop PTSD after 35 days combat, what does fifty operations, some while awake, do to a person? Well, we actually have the answer: it often gives them PTSD. We know lots about why people are disabled today because we have the benefit of a national health service which has good population data.
And back to carers. The Carers Allowance was lobbied for and won by carers, through an organisation called The National Council for the Single Woman and Her Dependents. The conditions that carers lived, and died, in before this organisation are a matter of public record. The Rev. Mary Webster and the LibDem MP Baroness Seear led this struggle (along with Tories, actually! Tories used to support carers and soldiers - and this is a cross-party campaign against "scroungers"), which makes it particularly galling that the Liberals are now participating in this. I can't afford access but if you search the Times Archive for "Reverend Mary Webster" between 01 Jan 1963 and 31 Dec 1965, you will find her initial letter describing what people did before CA.
Bear in mind CA is means-tested, taxable, and only paid to people doing 35 hours a week or more unpaid care work. It is reasonable and true to say they are saving the state money because that level of care need does not go away if the benefit does. It will have to be met by care workers, who must be paid at minimum £5.93/h (my CA works out to £0.34/h, and my DP must have two care workers to turn him, while I do it alone).
Combine the disabled population with the aging population and there is simply not enough institutional care to accommodate them all (leaving aside the political arguments about freedom and social participation etc), whatever we decide about carers and their moral turpitude. Care homes are full. Long stay hospitals are rare. The institutions for the mad have been closed, and that's probably a good thing, but the reality is that "care in the community" means "care BY the community", and everyone has needs food, shelter, heat...
I absolutely agree that the system needs reforming. It's a terrible system. Because of the interaction of benefits, means-testing support, and care charging, I cannot work and care for my DP. I actually have the capacity to work from home, though I know not all 24/7 carers do, and I would like to.
But having extensively reviewed the PIP proposals, read the ESA law, read testimonies from people who have experienced the system, I have come to the conclusion that these reforms are regressive, punitive, ideologically driven and ultimately harmful. Have you done these things, nijinksy? If so, please do so. I've yet to find someone who actually has gone and got themselves info-ed up who thinks they're a social good and I would like to talk to one. Even the government ministers implementing the proposals frequently make fundamental factual errors when discussing them.
It's well worth us having a good conversation about benefit reform - I have some ideas and I'd like to hear other peoples. But it's very boring to have to go on and on saying, yes, there are more disabled people than there used to be, no, DLA is not an out-of-work benefit, yes, you should report someone if you know they are committing a crime, yes I have compassion for old people, etc etc. It's just very boring! These arguments are facile. This is a very serious, life threatening (not lifeSTYLE threatening) reality for people that you are talking to right now. It's not a theoretical debate you can win by being unpleasant enough. Even if you change your mind, tbh, we don't win, because it is all still happening to us. This is hard truth of disability: you can't control it. There are no winners here.