Paying for social care - good news or bad news?

dd you sound really cross about all this - but can you explain how it's fair that some people have to use up their savings/house etc because they are unlucky enough to need care and others who remain (relatively) healthy will not to have to use it up for care costs and can spend or leave it as they wish? Do you think it's fair in the States for example that people go bankrupt paying for health care? Isn't it better that we pool risks that hit people so differentially? Why not make the parents of children with special needs pay more for their children's education? I know that life isn't fair but if you have the burden of ill health, children who need extra educational provision or you need social care, isn't that a bad enough price you pay without you also ending up much poorer than those who have been blessed in not needing that care?

No, it doesn't Luckygirl. It means that you can never leave your children less than £100,000 (unless you have less than £100,000 in assets in the first place).

Some people have hardly paid any National Insurance in their lives.

So that means that whatever we do, apart from obligingly dropping dead at home before we need care, we can never leave our children more than £100,000. I would prefer that they had full benefit of our savings and house value.

That is I guess not unreasonable until you consider that we have paid national insurance - note the word insurance - and our contributions have been spent on other things rather than invested for the services they were intended - as other forms of insurance are obliged to do. Bit of a con really.

The trouble is that it's not sustainable Rigby. We have a PAYG system and it's not fair that younger people are paying for care through taxes and NICs, which they won't themselves receive.

We could change to an individual insurance model, but that won't help the people who are already approaching a time when they need social care. It would be decades before it could be fully operational.

This was the problem when the NIC sytem was set up. Originally, people would build up their own funds, but that would have meant that older people would have had no entitlement, which is why we have the current system.

Why should people in poorer areas be compelled to pay into in an insurance scheme so that the children of people with property in high value areas inherit more, just because they drew a winning ticket in the lottery of birth? It doesn't make sense, if you believe in redistribution of wealth from the wealthier to the less wealthy.

£100,000 is not a pittance.

The other thing is that we know, we just know, that some people will find ways round this - there is already a real issue about joint tenants and tenants in common for example.

My guess is that the holes in this plan are getting bigger and bigger. For me, the basic principle of paying for social care is that it should be a pooled risk, just like the NHS. We don't make people who have cancer pay for their health care - we all contribute ( and if we're healthy) should thank our lucky stars. If it's a pooled risk, paid for out of taxation, then we all pay in and draw out as needed. Needing care in older age is not a privilege - how much more wonderful to be fit and healthy until you just keel over.

If we had the right to choose to die when we have had enough or in too much pain, then there would not be such a big social care cost to pay!

angelab and whitewave I entirely agree that it should be pooled in an insurance scheme but I greatly doubt that, until what has been suggested hits some people in their pocket, they will give a damn about anyone else or even the possibility of their own life changing. They will, no doubt, shout loudly about their rights if it does.

That's what was said when the Labour Party suggested it. Sorry, I still don't care what taxes I pay when I'm dead. My children know they won't get anything when I die, but I don't see why they shouldn't earn their own way in life anyway.

Foxy Ferret I am sure you are right but the SS in some areas already try to tell you that you are obliged/should sell and pay for your mum. Legally they don't have a leg to stand on but it doesn't stop them trying.

I have just read two posts that infer those who are opposed to this way of paying for Care don't want people who can afford it to pay for Care. I really don't know where anyone has said that. An insurance system such as we already have means that everyone pays but according to what they can afford at the time.

No point in saying more as if it suits some they are not going to think about others are they.

dd yes I would hope they'd be dead, but it is a death tax. There should be a universal insurance. The risk should be spread.

pernts'?? WTF! parents'

I know. If I hadn't lost my house, I would have moved somewhere cheaper by now and would have been quite wealthy. That's what many people from this area do. People from the NE and other areas don't have that option.

This manifesto is a pitch to poorer voters, so I'm still not sure why people on the left are complaining about it, except that Labour will probably lose votes.

I think this is where the great wealth divide comes into it daphnedill there are some areas where house prices/values double, treble end more over short periods of time and there are others like the part of the NE where I live where you are almost lucky if they stay the same.

Whitewave They'll be dead when the payment from "hard-earned" assets are paid. It's the children who will pay from their pernts' hard-earned assets. In any case,how hard does somebody actually have to work to live in a house which has increased in value at an annual rate beyond what most people can earn?

gillybob I have zilch sympathy with anybody who thinks £100,000 is a paltry sum.

I've been reading the comments on "Conservative Home", some of which are hilarious. Next thing we know, Theresa May is going to be accused of being a Marxist. Oh, the irony!

No, you haven't paid for your care. You paid for the care of your parents' generation. The fact is that the burden is being placed on those who are currently working.

The risk is pooled, because many people don't make it to retirement age and/or just drop dead without needing social care. They are the losers and their children the winners, which is how insurance schemes work.

I have no doubt that all kinds of insurance schemes will start coming on to the market.

One way or the other, people will still have £100,000 to leave to their children (if they have £100,000). Personally, I think that's quite generous. I don't see why children shouldn't have to earn their own money rather than rely on the lottery of birth and how wealthy their parents were.

I wish people would accept that shrouds don't have pockets

I know plenty people who must think they have daphedill

I agree that £100,000 is a lot of money to most people and I would be ecstatic to think my family could eventually benefit from a share in an amount like that. The thing is with some people, they might look down their noses at such a "pathetic" sum. They probably have cars worth far more.

The risk should be pooled. This way millions will have to pay out of their hard earned assets. There should be an insurance.

If you paid your stamp you have paid for care? Why should you have to pay twice?

If you think there is no money to pay for it maybe we should chase the companies and individuals who are not paying/avoiding paying taxes rather than take it from ordinary people.

Does anyone know the rationale for dismissing insurance? Years ago the govt. wasted money on the Dilnot report, whcih recommended a cap on care costs - wasted, because they took no notice of the report.

Tbh, I can't understand why in some quarters it is considered ok for other tax payers to pick up the bill for someone's care in old age if that someone has the means to pay for it themselves. My DC understand perfectly that anything that comes their way after our demise is a bonus not a right. Like students, the state cannot go on funding indefinitely more and more elderly people at the expense of the tax paying population. The time has surely come when those who can afford to pay will have to do so, if those who can't are to be properly protected. Likewise winter fuel allowance should be targeted towards people who genuinely need it, not to the many pensioners who don't. I personally am perfectly happy for our home to finance our care, time come.

My father died 3 years ago at the age of 94. Mum still lives in the house, she is 91. They were tenants in common and he left his half to me and my two sisters, so I assume (maybe incorrectly) that if mum ever had to go into a home they would only be able to take account of what half the house was worth. I would really like to know if this would be the case and as I have to make a new will because of other changes, I intend to ask the solicitor.