'Pay When You Die' proposed for elderly needing care

Itismehonest

I think it would be better to look very carefully at the care home situation before bringing in any new measures.
Whilst there are good homes giving good service at 'reasonable' prices there are also many who charge exorbitant amounts which seem unjustifiable.

Graham_Devon

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

Graham,

Inheritance - thats what its all about - and the petty jealousy that someone poor with no assets gets their care paid for, whilst a wealthy widow with a house has to pay for care and can't bequeath a large sum to her children..

This doesn't help inheritance though....does it?

The money still get's taken from the estate....infact more, as there is interest to pay on the money? Unless I have innocently missed something?

CLAPTON

totally pointless

the key decisions are delayed until 2014

so by then

-they will all be forgotten
-or they will be changed completely
-or they will be delayed until after the election


in any event bo change until at least 2016/17

moneyinmypocket

This is a total scam - so the elderly get to stay in there home, get a couple visits a week from some disinterested person and then when they die the state takes the house - awful this is robbing at the grave

Out,_Vile_Jelly

If I have children, I would aim to raise them to be confident, resourceful, employable and financially independent. I would enjoy telling them that I would leave all my money to the Cats Protection League, and the only thing left to them in my will would be my collection of X-Files magazines. Indeed, this is a family joke- my parents claim the house is being left to the cat, and all my brother and I will get is my dad's beloved stamp collection. We enjoy telling him that we'll Ebay it as soon as we can.

Top quality (there shouldn't be any other kind) of care for the elderly is expensive. Either you pay for it using your existing assets, or the state pays- meaning taxes will have to increase somewhere along the line. I don't see how it can be provided free.

grizzly1911

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

Graham,

Inheritance - thats what its all about - and the petty jealousy that someone poor with no assets gets their care paid for, whilst a wealthy widow with a house has to pay for care and can't bequeath a large sum to her children..

This only about balancing the books.

Those that have been prudent and have some assets are being asked to pay in full, those who have made no provision are paid for by the state.

At present if someone goes into residential care and has assets they are already taken into account. If fees have to be paid by the local authority they recover those from the eventual sale of the asset. All this does is put in place a deferral with interest.

It is also not clear whether this now attaches to the asset when the first partner enters care, as it doesn't at present if there is a surviving spouse or dependent relative remaining.

They have ducked the issue of a cap and they have also avoided any form of base payment, regardless of assets, with a voluntary top up, depending on the level of assets to give choice if someone wants "better" care.

No doubt the the NHS will suffer once more.

grizzly1911

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

I don't see how it can be provided free.

Near full employement and growing tax take /reducing unemployment benefit. All taxes that should be paid , collected, all aggressive avoidance schemes closed down, corporation tax paid and avoidance schemes close.

Would be a start wouldn't remove the issue but would make it more manageable.

Oh one more legalise euthanasia.

vivatifosi

I don't think its a bad idea if families have longer to sell their homes if that's appropriate. What I don't get is the whole "we have to have an asset to pass on" thing. If my last parent falls ill at any time I could go live there and offer them care, I could pay to have a specialist carer to come into the home or they could sell their home to pay for care. Clearly sometimes the level of specialist care required rules out options 1 and 2, but often it isn't that black and white. All this does is offer a new option on the last point, which could be interesting as, AIUI, end of life care does not tend to cost the same as a house as people often don't live that long in nursing homes, even where care is expensive. I still appreciate though that the devil is in the detail on this.

I'd much rather have a house and be able to plan for such eventualities - whether or not it ends up being sold to pay for my care - than leave everything to chance, possibly ending my days in a grotty bedsit because that's then the accommodation that they give to the elderly, or worse still, they expect widowed people to share a house. Anything is possible going forward and I don't want to be a part of that lottery.

AMILLIONDOLLARS

So they take 40% Inheritance Tax, then this measure will take the rest. Sounds like a good advertisment to rent a property from the outset, why bother going through the pain of home ownership!

AMD

PasturesNew

This seems odd to me. I can see that you could borrow the money to pay for care, so you can stay in your own home.... but once you're in a care home you don't need your own old home sitting around empty, so it might as well be sold.

If you have an old home, you have choices. You can sell it, rent it out, let family live in it .... and you choose which is best in order to be able to pay for care home fees. So many 'professionals' assumed I'd be renting out my parents' home to pay for fees; I couldn't see the benefit of that as there are costs/responsibilities .... and a "git house" takes quite a bit of bringing up to date before you could rent it out.

The problem I had was my remaining parent's annoyance that other people were getting loads of things free - and she knew she had to keep dipping her hand into her pocket for everything... e.g. daycentre, I had to send her off with £20 in her hand, others were there free. It made it difficult to persuade her because she didn't understand why she was paying and nobody else she chatted to was.

Sitting in your own home, you can be paying for essential care for medications/washing 3x a day, easily spending £200-250/week for this .... while others have people taking them out for walks and outings just because they get their carers free. And it's hard to explain to an elderly person that they can only have friends like that if they pay for them.... one friend of my mum even had a carer take her dog out for walks and it was paid for!

The costs of care in your own home can easily add up to £30/day to be got up/dressed, meds done, put to bed (usually at 7-8pm as they don't work later than that) ..... then you need to pay for daycentre/outings (say £80/week). Then you've still got the household bills to pay - and the value of the house isn't returning an interest income. Food costs more because it's having to be brought in from meals on wheels types of services + carers doing shopping, so food can be £60/week even when trying to keep it a bit cheaper.

Just basic care, 3x daycentres (handy for bathing, but you pay extra for that), meals on wheels/shopping can be £400/week.

There needs to be more sheltered housing type places so services can be provided centrally/more efficiently ... and there's an element of in-built socialisation.