For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By JoeC
#1536795
Those paying for their own social care are, in effect, subsidising the social care of those who can't pay by removing the burden of their own care from the system.

Those who may never need social care and therefore retain their assets/wealth do not have to subsidise anyone. Hardly a fair system. This could easily be remedied by a fairer, progressive tax system where we all pay into a social care fund.*

I though the Brits were pretty good at this stuff. Appears that we've lost our way and are becoming more like America everyday.

*edit- or a mandatory insurance scheme etc etc
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By MercianMarcus
#1536804
Mike Tango wrote:...it's cloud cuckoo land if you think the state can pick up the bills.


And of course, the state pick up the bill for nothing: tax payers do.
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By Mike Tango
#1536806
I shudder to think what the premiums would be to cover the potential of who knows how many years of £100,000 per annum care costs.

Whilst the cradle to the grave is an admirable desire, the sums no longer add up. If one is expected to take responsibility for pretty much everything else in one's life, why shouldn't one be responsible for using one's assets to fund care if and when the need arises?

There's no easy answer, but bowing to care nimbys worried about losing an inheritance isn't it.
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By MercianMarcus
#1536822
JoeC wrote:National Insurance was never designed for the care of the type of ageing population we have now. The idea is still sound we just need an updated version to deal with the issues of the 21st century.


NI is just income tax combined with a tax on employment (employers' NI) and it seems to me its only purpose is to fool people into thinking they are paying less (a lower percentage) of income tax.

If you tot up what the government takes from a basic rate tax payer (PAYE + the NIs + pension) you get close to 50%

None of the parties want to simply this situation for obvious reasons.
By JoeC
#1536835
Mike Tango wrote:I shudder to think what the premiums would be to cover the potential of who knows how many years of £100,000 per annum care costs.


As with NI contributions and general insurance - much less than individual families are having to pay in now if there was a fairer state-wide system in place.

Mike Tango wrote:Whilst the cradle to the grave is an admirable desire, the sums no longer add up.


My opinion is based on how insurance/NHS/social contributions can and have worked previously. I've not actually seen any sums from anyone. Which ones are you looking at?

Mike Tango wrote:There's no easy answer, but bowing to care nimbys worried about losing an inheritance isn't it.


Agreed. It's time someone had the balls to review the system properly for the right reasons.
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By eltonioni
#1536845
JoeC wrote:This could easily be remedied by a fairer, progressive tax system where we all pay into a social care fund.

You're advocating a poll tax.
By Bill McCarthy
#1536850
I cared for my late F-I-L until it was taken out of my hands as he ended up on a morphine pump. His monthly upkeep in the rest home was £3800. Like myself, he had not been out of work for one single day, up until retirement. In the next room, someone, who by choice, had never done a days work in his life was being attended to with no contribution at all from his family. I reckon the Tories are in for a shock - but what alternative is there to the communists, I mean Labour.
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By Charles Hunt
#1536856
Mike Tango wrote:I

There's no easy answer


Euthanasia?

When the time comes that I no longer have any quality of life, let me exit the system, and the funds go to my loved ones rather than care homes.
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By OCB
#1536872
Mike Tango wrote: longish term care for the elderly by the state is unaffordable.

My family is currently paying just over £8,000/month in residential care costs for our parents, 92 and 93


I can think of a couple of 90 year olds who cost the British taxpayer a fair amount more than that. Not a dig at the Monarchy, but when you compare what people pay in tax during their lifetime, inheritance tax etc...something just doesn't add up.

when I was a kid in the 70s, there were a lot of elderly homes run by the local Govt. I know, as I spent a lot of time visiting elderly relatives in them (WWI generation).

I then saw these close and the spectacular growth of privately run"granny farms", often snapping up mansions and former estate properties.

I also have and had family in the nursing profession. A lot of the "cost" of long term geriatric care is profit to the sometimes very dodgy "investors".
By Mike Tango
#1536885
JoeC wrote:

My opinion is based on how insurance/NHS/social contributions can and have worked previously. I've not actually seen any sums from anyone. Which ones are you looking

Agreed. It's time someone had the balls to review the system properly for the right reasons.


I have no specific figures to offer, just an awareness of having read numerous various articles around the subject. With an ageing population and inevitable increase in those requiring care, if the state is to pay then taxes will need to go up or something else will have to be cut. I might choose Trident for the latter, but that's another subject.

It does get on my goat that there seem to be increasing numbers of people that expect the state to pick up care bills solely so that they get an inheritance. I struggle to understand the thinking that sees ageing parents only as cash cows.
By Mike Tango
#1536886
Charles Hunt wrote:
Mike Tango wrote:I

There's no easy answer


Euthanasia?

When the time comes that I no longer have any quality of life, let me exit the system, and the funds go to my loved ones rather than care homes.


I have no intention of getting to the point my father is at now, it is soul destroying visiting him. And one is not particularly lifted when one walks down the hall a little to then visit my mother.
By Mike Tango
#1536887
OCB wrote:
Mike Tango wrote: longish term care for the elderly by the state is unaffordable.

My family is currently paying just over £8,000/month in residential care costs for our parents, 92 and 93


I can think of a couple of 90 year olds who cost the British taxpayer a fair amount more than that. Not a dig at the Monarchy, but when you compare what people pay in tax during their lifetime, inheritance tax etc...something just doesn't add up.

when I was a kid in the 70s, there were a lot of elderly homes run by the local Govt. I know, as I spent a lot of time visiting elderly relatives in them (WWI generation).

I then saw these close and the spectacular growth of privately run"granny farms", often snapping up mansions and former estate properties.

I also have and had family in the nursing profession. A lot of the "cost" of long term geriatric care is profit to the sometimes very dodgy "investors".


There's an argument that the royals bring in through tourism more than they cost the taxpayer, I think.

There's also a vast difference in the quality of care homes and home care out there. We could have found cheaper, but we would have got what we paid for. Indeed we moved my father out of his initial care home due to concerns about the care he was, or rather was not, receiving.

It is a mine field and I wouldn't wish our experience over the last two or three years on anyone.
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