Social care - who should pay?

And Norah - as my Dad used to say: "Who said life was supposed to be fair?"

I agree Luckygirl - and to me higher taxes seems the fairest way. Id actually change IHT to collect it.

The thing about life not being fair though is that society can mitigate the consequences of unfairness that it can't prevent. So( at the moment) society can't prevent dementia but can mitigate its impact on those unlucky enough to develop it and their carers by providing good support services and residential care paid through by the taxes of all of us

maryeliza54, I said that too, and use stockpiled assets to lower the cost to taxes. Why is that unfair?

Think about it this way, there is not a pot of gold to begin this pay for care scheme. So peoples assets used down to a reasonable sum, maybe £20-30K, will start the scheme until enough has been paid in by all workers. I heard somewhere it should only take 25-30 years for a comfortable amount to be in the fund, from then it would only be to people to pay income tax. I just do not see a problem to retired people self funding from assets, if possible, for the next 25-30 years.

And neither can I if we have a level playing field. Sadly at the moment we don't.
We chose not to have lots of foreign holidays, live above our means or even actually to within our means , we chose to save to make our retirement comfortable and affordable. This would have been fine if my H had developed cancer , heart disease or died from a stroke.
Thankfully he didn't, he decided instead to develop Alzheimer's, foolish man, so he must pay for his folly and leave me struggling to live well if he has to go into care.
That is what this thread is about, the unfairness of the system. Fortunately for me I also was brought up with the mantra," whoever said life was fair?

annsixty, what would level the field? Only people still working paying the fee on income? Nothing from people who have already retired?

To me, to level the field, everyone retired has to pay (to the sum set to be excluded) if they need care as they would not have paid for a scheme that did not exist during their work years. We are prepared to give up the house for my care and pay his pension for care, if necessary. Just because we spend and give away for estate tax reasons does not mean my DH allows us to be irresponsible to our potential care needs.

If only the current workers pay how would that be fair?

I am sorry but I do not understand you.
What fee is it that only working people pay?
If it is National Insurance you mean then yes that is so ,but remember most people including my H paid NI for many years , in his case from the age of 16 and now at 81 he still pays Income tax on his occupational pension and his state pension. He has certainly paid his dues all his life.

Norah we do not have any tax that takes everything, down to a certain amount. That isn't what I would call fair. If we used Estate Duty to take the same or a graduated percentage from everyone it would certainly be perceived to be fairer and more like the progressive system we are used to.

In addition we all need to be paying into a Care Insurance to establish an ongoing fund.

What I mean is a new scheme, the fee paid by whatever means, would not be paid by those retired, would it?

Where would the sum necessary to begin the scheme come from if not from assets of those needing the scheme for the first generations. In other words, those who never paid for the scheme.

How do I miss this as unfair? Would it be fair for the youngers to pay for it all if the elderly had never paid in?

GracesGranMK2 , of course it does not exist, but using resources down to a reasonable sum for care is not a bad idea nor an unheard of thought.

I'm with you Anya - take my own way out - all this talk about "care" and who should pay for it - I don't want to spend my final months/years being kept alive with pills - and being humiliated and/or abused by "carers" - it's off to Switzerland for me.

dbDB all this raises an interesting point about the quality of this 'care' we are talking about paying for and the quality of life. I expect most of us have been inside a care home.

Typically a large room for congregating during the day, and often with the TV on, often too loud so the deaf ones can hear and therefore killing off any conversation. The alternative is to stay in your own room.

Very warm, cooking smells, understaffed often by workers on minimum wages.

Not all are like this, but too many are.

I've visited many with my PAT dog when he was younger and I left most very, very saddened.

Yes Anya - I visited many when helping a friend find a nursing home for her mother - you sum up my feelings perfectly - "very saddened".

But if they are brought back into public ownership, run by councils, they could be improved. The care home my mother was in at the end was lovely, run by Hull City Council, so care workers got union wages. The people who worked there really did seem to care, unlike those in the private one where my mother in law died.

Reading some of these posts it would seem
that those with the most are squirrelling it away in order to avoid paying tax, possibly leaving those with the least to pay for their future care.

Isn't it always like that, gillybob?

By the way, what Norah is suggesting is as it is now, £23,000 allowed to be kept, the rest goes to pay for your care.
However, if she does go into a care home, she will have to show her bank accounts for the last seven years, I believe, and prove that any money she gave away wasn't for the avoidance of paying care home fees.

Giving money away is a problematical one as here is no limit to the time that the authorities can look back to decide whether the cash was disposed of for the purpose of avoiding fees.

Norah is fine, she gave hers away to mitigate inheritance tax. So she is in a very different situation to me.
I believe it is what is advised by accountants and planned carefully by them to stay within the laws governing that.

I am not trying to avoid care fees, money we gave our children was planned to be much more than 7 years of our lives left. It's about estate tax over a certain sum, I forget the sum, and it is legal.

Some are mixing estate tax to end of life care and it is not the same.

I think I should have to spend my own money on my care, and I really would rather see the limit be £20-30k to what one didn't have to spend of their own funds.

The question was "who should pay" and my answer is all should pay for all to receive. And limit the amount "safe" from care fees.

Durhamjen. I thought, like you that people are allowed to keeps some of their capital. LA help will kick in when capital falls to £23250 and when it falls to £14250 LA funding will be at the maximum. My friend's mother is in the most expensive care home and has sold her flat and used up all her capital apart from £14K. The legislation states as I have mentioned. But there is no protection of her remaining capital. The Government won't take it but the care home want it since the amount required to top up the £534pw from the council is £310. When her capital is down to nil they have assured my friend that her mother can remain there.

I worked for DWP and dealt every day with people entering care and always thought that people were guaranteed to be able to leave at least £14250 to their family. Not so!

So why was Teresa Mays 100k
so unpopular?

* gillybob,* because 100k is deemed too much by the people sorting the financial crisis. The 20-30k range is seen as something that can yield more care fees paid by those needing the care.

I don't think that was the reason Norah I think it was because many people did not think care in your own home should be treat the same as care in a care home . Whereas I can't see a difference. I have said many times before I would be overjoyed to think I could leave 100k to my children / grandchildren.