To think older people need to sit up and take notice of this

[OwlOfBrown]

So the Tory manifesto includes a plan to make (elderly) people pay for their own social care costs until they are down to the last £100K of their wealth. Andrew Dilnot, who chaired a commission on social care costs during the coalition government which suggested a cap of £35,000 on care costs borne by individuals, has condemned this plan.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/18/tory-social-care-plan-example-market-failure-andrew-dilnot

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-19286845/andrew-dilnot-on-social-care-cap-and-inheritances

I know a lot of MN'ers will say that this is fair, and I do have some sympathy with that opinion. Why should someone be able to sit on hundreds of thousands of pounds of wealth when the state pays for their care? But is it really fair? What about when others have the same amount of wealth but enjoy the good fortune of not needing social care so get to keep their wealth? After all, we don't make people with long-term illnesses pay for their medical treatment (yet...) so what is different about social care?

Debate away - I'm interested to hear other people's opinions on this.

while advancing the concept of medium or high-end care delivered privately, through insurance

Yes, but as stated earlier....you are sort of inviting the fox in with these private interests.

I am still confused. I know loads of people who pay for their care now out of their own pocket. Is that because not all local authorities provide enough care? Or that local authorities do not provide enough care per day?
I had assumed we were already living in a situation where if you could not cope when you were older you had to pay for it unless you had no assets at all.

Is that because not all local authorities provide enough care? Or that local authorities do not provide enough care per day?

To an extent yes.

Yes, but as stated earlier....you are sort of inviting the fox in with these private interests.

Corruption is an issue where the government does anything, be it deliver health care or subcontract it out to private enterprise.

Surely it's a good thing to offload affluent elderly people onto the private sector - yes?

It seems like one issue here is that there are an awful lot of people who cannot afford to buy....sort of jammed into relying on nanna to die.
It is grotesque in a way.

The majority of mine and DH's friends of the same age have only been able to progress to a 3 bed (or bigger) family home from their first time buyer home, through 'granny's death'.

My own family appear to be of the long living variety.

I am still confused. I know loads of people who pay for their care now out of their own pocket. Is that because not all local authorities provide enough care? Or that local authorities do not provide enough care per day?

I'm guessing they weren't sufficiently ill to qualify for government delivered residential care.

Except that's not how humans behave. The money would be pissed up the wall somehow rather than 'Let the state have it's
How exactly is a 75 year old woman with alzheimers going to piss all their money, which is tied up in their house, up a wall?

So apparently 60 years ago some people were told if they were model citizens and paid NI contributions they would be given a cushy life forever no matter how much it cost the working classes. Well that was based on people dying in their sixties, the situation changed. Why does that mean the poor should now be punished and the asset rich get unlimited care with the privilege of passing their wealth to their children.

I dont get why JC is now against taxing the asset rich and is happy to give more money to the wealthy. I supposed as he is borrowing it it doesn't cost anything and will get him a few votes. So much for his integrity.

Could it be also that the way we are running society, that these great income inequalities exist/develop....so that we have to actually worry about this situation....is faulty?

Yes, I mean people affected by the new rules - people who need care at home in their house. My father had quite severe dementia which killed him at home ultimately but he paid for all his carers. May be that was just because the alternative would have been a care home specialising in dementia which he would have had to pay for anyway as he had savings.

There are a lot of adverts locally (I live in an area with loads of fairly well off old people, some very old indeed. Waitrose looks like a care home at times, some of them look 100 actually and still going strong and good for them) and the ads are for people to live in, come during the day etc and all privately paid for already now in 2017. So I think in some areas of the country people already do pay for their care. This is why the news has not surprised me at all. I had wrongly assumed until today I would not get any care at home ever provided by the state.

That Devon MP I like - ex GP (Sarah Wollaston) writing in today's Times however makes the very good point that it needs to be made clear. I did not quite follow the point she wrote as I don't know the current rules
She says "It still takes many people by surprise that if they have assets above £23,250 they are liable to meet the full costs of their residential care and raising that threshold to £100,000 will be welcomed. But the long-awaited cap on the total that families will have to spend on care has been dropped. However the greatest change is that many more people will be liable for care costs because the value of their family home will no longer be exempt if they need care in their own home.

Any policy must avoid unintended consequences and ministers will need to clarify what period of grace will be applied for those who may only need short periods of care.

This so-called “disregard” is set at 12 weeks for those needing residential care and it is essential that this also applies to home care. If not, it will exacerbate rather than reduce delays to hospital discharges.

The dropping of the care cap sadly leaves social care uninsurable, leaving in place the miserable lottery of care costs. A future government should at least look again at supporting state-backed insurance for those who have not yet reached retirement age, so that they can begin to protect against this."

How exactly is a 75 year old woman with alzheimers going to piss all their money, which is tied up in their house, up a wall?

They wouldn't have the money left in the house by the time they got to 75 if they could help it. That's the point.

How exactly is a 75 year old woman with alzheimers going to piss all their money, which is tied up in their house, up a wall?

This might be one danger of turning loose the private sector on them.

So apparently 60 years ago some people were told if they were model citizens and paid NI contributions they would be given a cushy life forever no matter how much it cost the working classes. Well that was based on people dying in their sixties, the situation changed. Why does that mean the poor should now be punished and the asset rich get unlimited care with the privilege of passing their wealth to their children.

I have to agree. No one could have predicted that we would be living so much longer when these promises were made, in good faith. We have to revisit this cradle to grave thing I'm afraid.

It seems like one issue here is that there are an awful lot of people who cannot afford to buy....sort of jammed into relying on nanna to die. It is grotesque in a way.

Only reason DP and I could get on the housing ladder was through an inheritance from his DGM. Every single one of my friends who are home owners have had considerable financial help from either parents or grand parents. We're in London, but in one of the cheaper, suburban, non-trendy parts (Zone 5). Despite having saved a largish deposit, having 2 incomes and DP earning in the top 5% of the population, we still needed the extra help to afford our mortgage. We are very, very lucky to have done what we did, but it goes to show how utterly ridiculous the housing market is, especially in London and the South East.

I can see how it creates a reverse lottery effect where one family will be able to pass on a house and another won't
Isn't a lottery fairer than the current system where only the wealthy can pass a home on?

Perhaps it might incentivise people to look after their health more during their life!

You never know this could be Mays Poll Tax

They wouldn't have the money left in the house by the time they got to 75 if they could help it. That's the point.

And no one knows if they're going to need residential care, which is why insurance makes a lot of sense.

Unpredictable futures make people behave unreasonably.

I think this election we have a very clear choice. Labour want to increase taxes, bring more in to the exchequer. The Tories do not propose that.

However, the care system that everyone says we need is going to cost. If you refuse to vote Labour because you don't like their income tax proposals, yet object to old age social care being funded post death from capital assets, where do you propose the money comes from? Because it can't come from the younger generation. They have depressed incomes (wage stagnation), student debt of over £50,000, and the most unaffordable housing market there has ever been.

Oh, and with Brexit the economy is fucked, so we'll all be living in a 3rd world country soon enough anyway.

Isn't a lottery fairer than the current system where only the wealthy can pass a home on?

I don't accept that wealth is entirely a result of luck, so no.

Perhaps it might incentivise people to look after their health more during their life!

It looks like the ones who look after themselves "are the problem". This is bizarre.

You never know this could be Mays Poll Tax

I very much doubt it.

It looks like the ones who look after themselves "are the problem". This is bizarre.

Really? Are healthy people more likely to wind up requiring residential care?

They wouldn't have the money left in the house by the time they got to 75 if they could help it.

That's a possibility, but hardly very likely. If they did that they would be taking the risk of being homeless at 75 but still being healthy enough and not needing care to have another 25 years of life left. Would you take that risk?

Are healthy people more likely to wind up requiring residential care?
I think in a paradoxical way the answer is yes.

Speaking very generally, those who don't look after their health are more likely to die younger whereas those who do look after their health will probably live to be much older but need residential care when they can no longer live alone.

I appreciate that what I have said is a sweeping generalisation and I apologise to all those people who have or will die younger than they should even though they have looked after their health.

Has anyone thought that if we pursue a sensible housing programme, one where younger people could afford to own a home, where we had adequate social housing and quality places for the elderly....that this "lottery" situation would diffuse?

Freed from high mortgages and rents, could more be set aside for retirement and care and things?

JamieXeed74 agreed. The promises were made in good faith on what turned out to be a false assumption and need to be revisited as being unaffordable, and unfair as the same deal won't be available to the next generation when they get old.

As for people needing inheritances to buy a house: they might not be so in need of the inheritance if they paid less tax on the basis that they were not subsidising other people's DGM's years in a nursing home (or wherever), and then that would be fair for all youngsters. Not everyone has home owning grandparents, and whether or not you can afford a house should not be coming down to that.