Is this possible. Re Tm and "dementia tax"

[monkeysox]

Have been thinking about this.

If many people no longer inherit big ish sums due to care costs (home not taken into account at the moment for care in own home) how will this affect the housing market?

Government may end up "owning" shares of lots of houses but who will have a deposit to buy one of them?

It would take loads of potential homeowners out of the market.

Aibu does that make sense?

1. The system was never set up to cope with people needing the amount of care they now do

The NHS wasn't set up to do alot of things it does now e.g. supplying contraception, abortions, heart transplants, kidney transplants, bariatric surgery, cataract surgery, hip replacements, MRI scans, angioplasty. So why are all those things deemed worthy of spending money on but dementia is something you have to pay for yourself?

woodhill, I feel sorry for your MIL. It is a terrible way to end a probably long marriage. I think the people who think it is coming in and doing a bit of tidying up and shopping haven't got a clue.

I think we do have to have some tough conversations about how elderly care, which will continue to explode in numbers is to be funded as it's not great at the moment.

1. The government have said there will be a cap. So if people are lucky enough to have the cash needed for care then houses won't be needed to be sold. It will just be those that don't have large enough bank accounts that it will effect.

The only thing you can be sure of is the law of unintended consequences. After all the rise in zero hours contracts followed a well-meaning attempt to extend employment rights to agency workers.

You could run a book on which way this will go - I'd put a fiver on an increase in downsizing at retirement and gifting to the DC, which would probably increase house prices.

As far as I can make out currently OAPS are allowed to keep £23,500. Any other savings or assets they may have will go towards paying their keep should they need residential care.

What TM is proposing is OAPs get to keep £100k before any costs for care. That surely has to be a good thing?

Or more rich landlords when people rent and not buy and spend their money instead of saving for old age.

People talking about giving the "kids" deposits- you do know dementia comes with old age? It's rare for 50/60 year olds to get dementia. How many 80 year olds do you know with "kids"??*

I know my cousin is 58 and in a care home with severe dementia and she has to pay for her own care out of her savings until it goes down to 27k which will go to her son one day as she can't spend anything she is too far gone.

Instasista do you think young people with anorexia should get fed, be hospitalised if their weight falls to a dangerous level? I find it hard to believe that in the 21st century you would find it OK for someone to starve to death because she needs a bit of encouragement to eat. It isn't that she can't eat, it isn't that she doesn't get hungry and want food, it is purely that she forgets what she is doing so forgets she is eating and wanders off and forgets it.

We truly are living in the dark ages if people think that is acceptable. What we need is proper treatment for these people who are ill. If you tell me that if you get heart disease, HIV, cancer or any other expensive to treat condition that can go on for years then you will be happy to go without treatment or pay for it then don't tell me that old, vulnerable people shouldn't be properly cared for.

Perhaps the whole health/social care divide is screwed up Lindor - where I live atm (abroad) people doing social care solo (rather than as a helper not allowed to work alone) are well trained and state registered and do indeed do injections for diabetes, set up drips, insert and maintain catheters etc. They are better paid than in the UK too of course, not well paid but closer to a lower grade NHS nurse than a carer in the UK.

I don't understand why people seem to be more worried about protecting the inheritances of a few lucky people, rather than trying to limit the tax burden for a much larger group of people?

The baby boomer generation have already benefited from the housing market and generous pension schemes. Now they want the current working population to fund their old age care too?

granny isn't it true that types of care are being separated out though - if you have cancer you chemotherapy, operations, radiation, antibiotics to fight secondary infections are paid by the NHS. If your cancer renders you unable to walk or control your bowels or do your own shopping and housework and reduces or removes your appetite (as it has my mil) the NHS won't cover any of that!

It's the same for dementia - the medical issues are covered but not the tasks that you used to be able to do yourself, which fall under care (including encouraging the patient to eat).

The division may be (is) artificial but it applies to all areas of health care, doesn't it?

I agree darkflood and Ivor bit am suspicious about the Conservatives introducing such an apparently socialist policy and wonder what the game is!

Carers are not qualified to give injections which is why nurses have to fo it. Oral diabetic meds can be and are given by carers

If someone has cancer and cannot manage day to day at home because of this the NHS does not support them. They make a referral to adult social care to sort out a care package

They should be though mill, it would streamline the system. Caring should be professionalised with proper mandatory training and qualifications (free). In Germany carers do as many hours of classroom education and placements as nurses (though through special colleges not university). They work under varying levels of supervision and ate frequently assessed externally as they train. Then they are paid properly. It would be cheaper in the long run as one service/ individual can do pretty much everything in the community or care home short of things which require a doctor or ambulance.

This is partly why my parents have signed the house over to us children.

They won't go into care and have no assetts so to speak.

I agree it should be professionalised and paid properly but this is the problem when you have private companies out to make a probot. They will pay staff as little as possible.
Also if someone has dementia, any medical treatment they require is" paid for ' by the NHS it's just that usually there isn't any so again it's referred back to adult social care

dark
no-one is asking the current working population to fund the care of the over 65s (who incidentally pay tax too)
This policy (not a dementia tax) means that those who go into a care home get to pass on more of their wealth to their family. My mother was self-funding in a care home and it took most of any possible legacy I weould receive which represented a lifetime of my father working as a farmer. But the alternative was - the family would have had to step it.
Many many people do nt need 24/7 care in either a care home or their own home and in spite of the oft-touted statistic implying 1 in 3 over 65s have dementia - most old people do not need constant care.
The total population prevalence of dementia among over 65s is 7.1% (based on 2013 population data)
This equals one in every 79 (1.3%) of the entire UK population, and 1 in every 14 of the population aged 65 years and over
Compared to the 2007 estimates, the current prevalence consensus found there are slightly more people with dementia in the youngest (65 to 69) and oldest (90+) age bands and slightly fewer in the intermediate age groups
As I have said before on numerous threads (so I apologise) house prices are too high, the wealth in house prices has 'not been worked for' and the biggest squealers about this are the 40-50 year olds who were anticipating a humungeous inheritance when my generation shuffle off. Tough - why should everyone else pay for their wealthy parents to be looked after.

olliegarchy99 I agree with your last paragraph, which makes me think I have misunderstood the whole thing! (I have been v busy recently so I have probably not followed it all properly.)

My understanding was that the Tory manifesto was suggesting that retired people with assets over £100k should have to use these assets to fund their own care. And that people seemed to be in uproar about this being unfair. Have I got it wrong?

Thanks Granny so sad, she is over 80. Been together since teens

Just to be clear my ils are not wealthy.

A question related to people who need "social care" as a result of cancer or similar, do you have to pay for it?

My issue is not the inheritance, it's the unfairness of people needing help with basics such as feeding (my dad can't do that at all anymore) having to pay for it.

Shenanagins when my MIL needed care as she was terminally ill with cancer she had free care in a hospice, my mother spent her last weeks in hospital. When they were at home, MIL was ill for several years, they had support from district nurses and MacMillan nurses and didn't have to pay for any care although my mum paid for a gardener and MIL used to pay the kids nextdoor to go to the shops for her.

It's the same for dementia - the medical issues are covered but not the tasks that you used to be able to do yourself, which fall under care (including encouraging the patient to eat). Mental illness is an illness, I have worked in adult mental health care for the last 20 years and I can assure you that people who are hallucinating, neglecting themselves and causing problems do get free care. Well if they are young they do. I have seen both at close quarters and dealing with someone who is hysterical and terrified at the dead people threatening them is not social care, they need to be cared for by mental health nurses who are properly trained.