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?

Well - if I am needing care and my savings (including value of our home) dwindle to £100,000, how might I be able to leave my children more than £100,000?

I'm not talking about NI - that's a busted flush anyway but a social insurance model - I'd fund it through some sort of inescapable 'death tax' on estates so that those who left more, paid more but the cost would be shared right across everyone - not just shouldered by those who drew the short straw in the lottery of health.

Above comment is to dd

National Pensioners Convestion has condemned the plan as being the worst of all worlds.

Rigby They'll be dead when the tax needs to be paid. They won't be using up the money. Their children will inherit less. The NHS was never intended to fund years of expensive home care.

Ifthere wer a social insurance model, who would fund the care of those people who aretoo old ot pay into it? I agree that one might work, but it wouldn't be operational for decades until the current 20 year olds reach old age.

In any case, I still don't think it's fair that people in the NE etc should fund people in London and the SE to leave expensive houses to their children, which would be what would happen. They'll still get £100,000, which is hardly a pittance.

I care, because I care about equality and the way wealth builds up over generations.

If I had my way, I'd leave enough to pay for a funeral and death expenses and confiscate the rest to be redistributed. As far as I'm concerned, we have our time on this earth and then we die. Let people benefit from what they earn, but I don't see why future generations of the same family should benefit. Now that would be really Marxist!

Why is it the worst Whitewave?

Well, it may surprise daphnedil but I agree with her.Something a bit radical needed to happen with social care, given the scale of our aging population, and those that can pay should pay.Yes, in an ideal world I would have liked to leave house and savings to DC ( house prices here are through the roof) but I recognise the need to stump up for our own care, and if it leaves £100,000 for their inheritance then so be it.I also am surprised that the left wing on here are up in arms about it.In fact the policy seems centre left to me and entirely fair.

Luckygirl You wouldn't be able to leave more than £100,000, but that would be the minimum you could leave. It's not to be sneezed at.

Sir Andrew Dil it says that we are going to end up with an inheritance tax that is health specific. So if you end up with dementia, all your assets will be stripped away apart from £100k, whilst another elderly person may be lucky enough to live in reasonable health until the end.

Someone else suggested that there will have to be fail safe guards so as the property cannot be forced to be sold if one spouse dies indebted to a care company.

dd the pensioners convention said it was worst not me.

Well - I think it is to be sneezed at. We have paid into national INSURANCE; but successive governments have spent these payments. That is not how insurance works.

The real bit of the system that needs sorting concerns Continuing Care payments where the NHS is obliged to pay care costs (either at home or in a residential/nursing home)- there are millions of people who qualify for this and never get it because the rules are so complex that even those administering it do not understand it and they give misinformation, telling people that they do not qualify when they do. This change to the amount of assets that can be ignored will precipitate a rush of legal/semi-legal firms setting themselves up to advise folk on the Continuing Care system and creating a situation where the NHS will be crippled by these payments.

daphne - it is also the maximum! - the state will have gobbled up the rest!

We should undoubtedly all pay towards our care, but the risk should be pooled and we should all pay the same. That is the principle that is being broken, that is the principle on which the welfare state was built.

Not really Luckygirl the rest would have been spent on the cost of "our" care. Which is potentially a massive amount of money. I know how much my grandma's care package cost and she only had to contribute a small amount towards it. The rest was paid for by tax payers.

What ends up happening is that poor areas such as ours have high care costs as our elderly are mainly ex working class (miners, shipyards, heavy industry etc) without valuable assets or family who can pay for private care. Then our council tax shoots up to help fund it and the poor get even poorer.

Its fine in the wealthy areas as they have the money and assets to fund private care.

So gilly why not an insurance to give everyone peace of mind?

I don't agree we should all pay the same whitewave . How can it be fair that someone with assets of hundreds of thousands, millions even, should be funded in the same way to the same level as someone with assets of only £5,000, £20,000 or even £100,000? which is still a lot of money to me but a drop in the ocean in some wealthy areas.

Those with the most to lose (the rich) would be able to take out the insurance and afford to pay it. Those with the least would probably not be able to afford it. Much like poor people going without contents insurance or life insurance because they have to choose between eating/ heating and "luxuries" such as insurance premiums.

I agree, WW.

Whenever a change to policy comes in, it can't apply to everyone - for example if a benefit is introduced, it's not usualy retrospectively available to people who can no longer qualify, but still there has to be change sometimes.

So it's pointless to say that an insurance system isn't a good idea because who is going to pay for people who are elderly now - that is a completely different issue from provision for elderly care in the future.

I am sorry but I cannot see why people think this is fair. This is a dementia tax. You get dementia and your care has to be paid out of your savings and assets if you have any. I don't and I keep mine.

If we had an insurance system we would both pay in according to our means and then care, like health would be free at the point of delivery and based on need not ability to pay.

Interestingly there were four experts on the Daily Politics talking about this system and none of them really explained it, not just to me but to the others on the programme who understand this sort of thing.

One expert did say he thought the only people who would get WFA would be those on Pension Credit but there was no detail on that either. I suppose May thinks we will just trust her BUT I DON'T!

angel exactly. There are always transitional arrangements when changes like this happen. As you say, it's not an argument against the principle. I'm finding it really puzzling how people don't seem all that bothered about the fundemental unfairness of the policy and can't say why health, education etc should be treated differently to social care.

I don't trust any politician GGM2 !

It depends how the insurance would work and how it would be paid. Would it be a PAYE tax (as in the more you earn the more you pay) or would it be a private insurance that you could choose to take out if you were rich enough to meet the (probably hefty) payments? Also I guess the insurance would rise massively for those who have already had dementia in their family.

A right can o' worms if you ask me.

If you and your partner own a house then make sure you have it as tenants in common. ie, you both, separately, each own half the house. That way, only your half of the equity in the house can be taken into account. I assume, whether house is owned jointly or in common, that the surviving partner can stay in the property until they die and only then will the money be due.

The real question is, what happens if only one partner owns the house? When an aunt remarried, her husband moved in with her, but her house continued to be owned by her alone. In that situation will the spouse or partner have to move out when the person owning the house dies?

There is also no information as to whether interest will be charged on the money paid out by the councils and not paid until the recipient dies or the house is sold. We know what has happened to many people taking up equity release schemes, with interest the amount due to be paid back on death has been many multipes of the original sum.

gb I don't think social insurance would mean that everyone paid the same - it would depend where the money was raised from. My idea would be a % of your estate with very small estates being exempt. You could raise it via income tax or a specially designated social care tax - all would have to be income related to be fair. The insurance bit simply means that we all pay in but would not all draw out.