To think this is the fair and kind way to fund social care crisis

[BarnabyBungle]

So two people each have £325k in assets.... one dies of a heart attack suddenly and leaves inheritance for family (and/or anyone else they so choose), the other gets severe dementia and spends years in an expensive home, and spends all but the £14k threshold left when they die.

Hardly fair is it?..... But then it’s unreasonable to increase general taxes to fund care as it would mean those without substantial assets would be paying for enabling those that did....

Surely lowering inheritance tax threshold and/or increasing the rate would be fair. If the limit were, say, £125k, and the rate was, say, 40% on inheritance above to the current £325k threshold, both imdividuals would pay £80k inheritance tax, enabling both to pass on £245k, rather than one passing on £325k and the other £14k.

Not only would this be far fairer it would help alleviate the anxiety of those with dementia knowing their condition means they will mean their assets will be dramatically reduced as their disease progresses.

OP I can’t reason with someone who cannot understand that taking the risk from one group and imposing it directly on another is NOT “pooling risk” it’s just changing who is bearing the brunt of it.

Pooling risk would be everyone being in the same position, not just deciding that one group should foot the bill when that’s the problem in the first place.

OP I can’t reason with someone who cannot understand that taking the risk from one group and imposing it directly on another is NOT “pooling risk” it’s just changing who is bearing the brunt of it.

But there is one “group” here.... the general population. A particular member of that population may die of a heart attack or may die of dementia (or any number of things). That person doesn’t know what until they get a terminal condition and/or dies. Everyone is at risk. To spread the costs of various terminal conditions and/or treatments fairly, a methodology is agreed for pooling resources through a reasonable and fair method of taxation. I really don’t understand what you’re not grasping here.

Perhaps if you offered a potential solution I may understand.

I’m in France. Here, parents can give or sell their homes to their children before they die and retain the right to live in it rent free until they die or move elsewhere. Families are expected to contribute to older care, but it’s means tested and quite limited, and is not expected to include the sale of the older persons former house. The state - funded by higher taxes and, admittedly, a massive social security deficit, pays for whatever level of care the person requires.

I’m not sure if the history behind it, but it seems a lot fairer and recognises the value of family assets as opposed to individual assets.

The issue of funding social care in the UK infuriates me. It is illlgical and inconsistent.

OP I give up. Have fun arguing your nonsensical points with someone who has the energy.

I don't agree with inheritance tax at all. This is money that has already had tax paid on it.

I don't want to live either as a very frail person who needs physical help or as a living shell of myself with dementia. Living wills that allow you to ask for death in specific circumstances should come into force, imo.

A friend of mine's grandmothers lived very different lives. One saved, bought her own house and lived carefully, the other lived in a council flat and spent her money on holidays and cars. Different people, different choices, fine. But, when they both had to go into homes, the saver lost everything, including her house, whereas the spender got a free ride. There's something not right about that.

YeTalkShiteHen

We all pool our resource which is applied on the basis of need. As some are needier than others, some will receive more than others. What is your problem with that?

And what exactly do you suggest which might be better? Anything? Anything at all? I’m assuming from your persistent silence of the matter than your position is just to whinge and whine that “everything is sooo unfair” and despair that any solution is possible.

We all pool our resource which is applied on the basis of need. As some are needier than others, some will receive more than others. What is your problem with that?
Great if we all put the same amount into the pot. But we don’t. Some put nothing into the pot.

as tea and toast mentioned penalising the saver by taking all their assets to pay for care while just providing care free for person B who always had the same income but spent it all will discourage any form of saving,

so if both people are on 40K a year and one saves 5K each year towards pension etc and buys their own home with this 40k it is perfectly fair to take their now 100k and their house to pay for care, while person B who had exactly the same income for the same number of years needs to pay nothing as they spent it all and have no house
This scenario is not going to encourage A so eventually the state will be paying for more B's as A's will be rarer than hen's teeth

the other scenario is both C and D have 100K saving and a house worth 250K

person C needs 100k worth of surgeries and hospital stays warfarin therapy etc due to coronary heart disease which eventually kills them cost to NHS 100k but C has 350K to pass on as inheritance

person D gets dementia but has perfectly healthy heart but needs full time care costing 100K cost to NHS about 5k in drugs and a bit of nursing care cost to C 100K in care costs , leaving 250k as inheritance

ok so 250k inheritance is still a lot but it is unfair that if you get diseases X Y and Z state pays but is you get Q and R you have to pay

That’s the case with everything though. For example if you have diabetes you get all your prescriptions free. So a diabetic needs antibiotics and they’re free but everyone else who needs antibiotics has to pay a prescription charge. And in any case there are much bigger inequalities in life than just which disease you get!

That’s the case with everything though. For example if you have diabetes you get all your prescriptions free. So a diabetic needs antibiotics and they’re free but everyone else who needs antibiotics has to pay a prescription charge. And in any case there are much bigger inequalities in life than just which disease you get!

But why can’t someone try to sort out a particular inequality because there ahapoen to be other inequalities. If we take the attitude that everything has to be fair in some grand scheme before we can try and make anything fair, we’ll never get anywhere.

@teaandtoast yet if everyone saved every penny for old age, lived frugally and only bought what was necessary the economy would be fucked.

A couple of other points - my parents own their house. If it ends up being sold to pay for care costs one day my DSis will likely never own a property and the government will have to pay all of her care costs, should she need it.
The full value of my house would cover less than two years of care home fees locally.

Councils under pay for places meaning self funders have to pay more. Which means more people will run out of money. Which means the state pays more...

None of this is solving the crisis.

Great if we all put the same amount into the pot. But we don’t. Some put nothing into the pot.

The same amount into the pot? So the billionaire pays the same as the pauper? I suppose that’s fair on one level, but it’s excessively regressive and not the kind of society i want to live in.

I've never understood the issue with people paying for the expensive care they recieve.OP says its not fair that someone who costs the state nothing in care passes on their money, while someone else who needs years of expensive care has to spend their money on said care. But actually, that's completely fair, isn't it?

But actually, that's completely fair, isn't it?

On one level I agree with you.... it is fair in so far as we pay for what we cost, but by the same measure it would be completely fair that a family should pay for the substantial healthcare costs of their dying child.

However, on another level though it’s not fair.... If I said to you, here’s a dice. If you roll a ‘1’ you will die of a slow death from dementia and you will need to pay £500k to cover the costs of care. If you throw any other number, you will die a quicker death and the state will pick up the healthcare bill, would that be fair? No, of course not.

I don’t want to live in a society that’s plays Russian roulette with its members.... where the unlucky ones get shafted, and the lucky ones don’t simply based on the terminal condition you happen to develop, especially when it’s perfectly possible to pool the risk of social care in the same way we do for healthcare.

Yes, there are many inequalities in our world, and this is only one of them, and not the biggest one by far, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to try and sort this particular one.

On the thread on how to fund the NHS, posters kept raising the fact that some poor people can't afford to pay for a GPS visit, or prescriptions and that means the upshot was no charges can be made. In this thread it is posited that some people will not spend all their savings on care homes and be able to pass it on therefore no sharing of the cost across the population should be done. People just like to 'win' an argument I think. Things will continue as they are unfortunately.

I like to have a choice as to what I spend my money on. I choose not to spend it on care costs, but there is no state assisted mechanism to allow me to die so that I can avoid going into care. Some people might choose to live and others wouldn’t want to continue living, which is fair enough. Why can’t we have the choice? It’s up to me where my money goes isn’t it?

I think IHT is a really unfair tax.

I have no issue with the concept. I think it's right if you inherit a chunk you should share some with society.

But the wrong people are paying it. The really rich (and by that I mean people with a couple of million, not the super rich) avoid it. They buy agricultural land unfairly inflating the price.

Can someone explain to me how the fuck dementia isn't a health issue?

What slarti said. Dementia is a medical condition as much as any other illness. There is no scientific justification for not treating a decline due to dementia in the same way as one from cancer, or Huntington’s or anything else. The line drawn between social and medical care is totally illogical, and has much more to do with the government (and tax payers) not wanting to properly fund the care system. Yes, the cost would be huge. But the current system is no solution and is unsustainable.

What happens down the line when generation rent reaches care home age? And none of them have homes to sell for care?

The line drawn between social and medical care is totally illogical

Exactly. I’d have a lot more time for arguments such as “if you have the money you should pay for your care” if the same poster advocated that the NHS should be scrapped in its current form and only available to those who couldn’t afford paying for their health care. I wouldn’t agree with it but at least it would be a logically consistent position.

I like to have a choice as to what I spend my money on. I choose not to spend it on care costs, but there is no state assisted mechanism to allow me to die so that I can avoid going into care.

I agree in principle but practically I think we shouldn’t be supporting assisted dying whilst we also have the system for funding social care.

Otherwise people may make a decision to end their lives based on guilt that they won’t be able to provide for their families upon death (or even worse coerced into it by unscrupulous family members keen to receive an inheritance) rather than one that reflects their actual wish to continue life.

Another issue which I believe is even more pertinent is that if you are in the early stages of dementia, and are able to make a rational decision to terminate your own life, you don’t need any assistance to carry out your wish. If you are in the more advanced stages, and do need assistance, then you would not be in a position to give informed consent..... So where I think there is a case for assisted dying where an individual is mentally able to decide but physically incapable of carrying out that wish, I don’t see that being the case for dementia.

This is what Advance Directives are for.

Comparison is the thief of joy. And the jealousy of some is astounding.

This is what Advance Directives are for.

I think a AD authorising euthanasia would be difficult to implement for something like dementia as there may be moments, or extended periods, when the person would be content in their continued existence, not appreciating the situation they are in. In such a case would you be advocating that person is euthanised against their wishes albeit that those wishes are expressed through the veil and confusion of dementia.

Advanced Directives don’t deal with euthanasia. They outline the amount and type of medical intervention a person wishes to have in the event of catastrophic illness or deterioration in their condition.