Tory minister calls for introduction of social care insurance

Grany23
I did not mean to Insult and am sorry you took as you say my well intentioned post that way. I did not know you live in Scotland which of course has a different system. I do not k ow that system. I know the system extremely well in England due to the fact that my mother passed away mid year after a short stay in a nursing home. We had to deal with the system for my father and found it easy to navigate. The LA was extremely helpful and efficient. My father remains in his own home and had my mother still been alive, they paid the full contribution and would have continued to do so.

I don't have a problem with taxation being increased, but I do have an issue with sudden shifts in the goalposts when people have made plans based on what they were expecting (reasonably) to happen.

If an insurance scheme were to come in now, how would someone who has retired pay it? As we know, the older you get, the higher premiums go, and it would cost a fortune for older people to pay for enough insurance to cover care.

As has been said, we have already paid tax and NI for decades, and many of us have also had to make up a massive shortfall in our pensions, so it seems to me very unfair that we should have this dropped onto us on top of everything else.

Money for Social Care should have been ring fenced. The councils spend it elsewhere.

Perhaps on their pensions? The office/managerial Social Care workers retire about 55 and have a good pension and meanwhile
the elderly and disabled go without the care they need.
This is never really questioned.

I agree Mal44.

I feel that there should be National Care Service running alongside NHS as previously suggested by Peter Hain.It should be supported by a care tax and should be applied to everyone regardless of age who is eligible to pay tax.Their will always be resentment if homeowners and savers have to pay and others don't.

Some of us have been very lucky, others have made huge sacrifices to own a home. Perhaps they've worked overtime, gone without a car or holidays, stuck to a limited budget and spent far less on celebrations - just to pay a mortgage. They'd be justified in feeling huge resentment about losing their house.

Did you know that only the money in banks and property is taken into account? You could own a Rolls Royce, antique furniture, priceless art, racehorses, anything you fancy, in fact and none of it is considered.

growstuff, I'm unsure that you really understood the proposed changes completely (as many people didn't). They applied only to care costs (not residential 'rent', food etc., the majority of fees) and they stated new 'rules' for home care.

Those being cared for at home atm need a minimum income guarantee to cover bills etc. They are charged for care according to income and savings but the value of their home is not taken into account. The new proposals intended to change that, with the property being sold, after death, to repay the loan.

People would not have been left with more money. Everyone would risk losing their home and the money 'left' would soon go on residential 'non care' fees. So, whether care was residential or at home, it was a far worse deal than at present. That's why Labour opposed it!

I agree with you Luckygirl. Maybe I should put on my tin hat here, but I thought May/Hammond's idea before the 2017 election wasn't that bad. I still don't understand why Labour opposed it because people would have been left with more money than they are now, even if the house had to be sold. Those who would have paid most would have been the wealthiest.

Simple answers to that one Ngaio. The foreign aid budget wouldn't cover social care - nowhere near - and foreign aid is used to maintain the UK's reputation in the world, in the hope that they will adopt our way of thinking, not want to go to war against us and buy our exports.

Rather than taxing workers more why don't we dig deeply into the foreign aid budget. Time enough to send money out of the country when we have no social issues here.

I am not of the mind that says that the value of a person's property should not come into the equation if they have left their won home for good. It does not seem unreasonable to me that some of the value contained therein should be put towards care. I do not worry overmuch about not being able to leave a good legacy to children. What I mind very much about is that I am resident in the family home and all the rules say that the house should be safe - but how else to pay the £50k per year top-up?

I agree with you Hetty58 that it should be a tax rather than an insurance policy.

PS. Thank you for posting the graph.

They'll be working until they're 75 and can't be expected to look after us!

Agreed, HettyMaud. I'm very worried for my children.

Hetty 58 and Tooting29, I agree with you. I'm currently looking after my 95-year-old mother. I'm 70 myself. It's ludicrous. If she were in a home, her savings and house would be gone within a couple of years and this is money that should go to my children. I think the NHS should be cradle-to-grave where we all pay more taxes and old people's homes are state run.

I'm talking about starting a new system for future generations. I've already accepted that we are in real trouble, should we need care!

growstuff, I don't believe that it should be an insurance (with all the related overheads) but rather a tax, exclusively ring fenced for care:

Not that simples! What about people already in their 60s, whose main working lives are over? Many of them have property, which could be sold or down-sized, but many other don't. They live frugally on a small pension and have few savings. Dividing £30k by the number of years they have left (on average) would still be unaffordable for many.

Tooting29, not all residential care homes are in the private sector. My mother was lucky enough to spend her final years in an excellent council-run home close to us.
And it's not scaremongering - this is exactly how it will happen, piece by piece, with some people willing to accept it, until it's too far gone to retrieve

It has to start somewhere and perhaps a social care insurance is the long term funding solution bit it doesn't address the here and now.

I see the scaremongering continues about selling off NHS, but the reality is that residential care homes are already in the private sector and have been for years. There needs to be a state business model to address it and insurance seems a good option. After all adverts abound for funeral costs and life insurance so why not social care insurance. Simples

Hetty That FT article is behind a paywall.

£30k for many people is still a lot. Many people would try to opt out and the wealthiest could afford to fund themselves anyway. That's what happened with "Obamacare" in the US.

I agree with you that it should be paid out of taxation, in which case the wealthiest will pay more. I think the problem with increasing tax is that it's not ring-fenced, so future governments can spend it as they wish. I'm being devil's advocate.

One way or an other it does have to be paid for. The options are for it to be paid by individuals (in which case the wealthiest will get the best care) or whether it becomes a collective responsibility, as the NHS is.

I agree with your post Granny23. Unless you are in this situation, and indeed know only too well how the current system works it is patronising to offer simplistic advice.

I am so sorry that it has come to this Luckygirl as I have followed your situation for some time.

I have an elderly, disabled mother with dementia and have applied for so called Continuing Health Care and I know very well, that it is a flawed system.

It is massively underfunded, and therefore raises the hopes of those, who are legally entitled to financial help, only for care to be refused. It is also very costly to have a legal representative and to appeal.

It is quite honestly a lottery whether you spend most of your savings on care in later years, or are "lucky" and drop dead with no expense to relatives (funeral apart) and leave a good inheritance. How fair is that?

I am definitely opposed to a system of private insurance. I think that since elderly social care was placed in the hands of private companies, now running Care Homes and Care Services, the service has deteriorated considerably. I do not believe you can make health or social care profitable unless you restrict it or charge excessive amounts to the consumer. Likewise with insurance companies.

What's wrong with increasing tax, not reducing it as has been proposed by the newly elected PM.

www.ft.com/content/dea4fc1c-611b-11e5-9846-de406ccb37f2

I think that it will be affordable for future generations. I don't know the statistics, but let's assume that half of us die at home or in hospital and the other half need long term care (so called). That's about a 30K contribution in a working lifetime each, quite possible as a 'care tax' I'd say.

It already happens in Europe, my sister has always ha to pay towards any likely care home costs.