Is it time access to free NHS care was age limited?

lisyloo

This presents the same age old question, because we CAN do something SHOULD we do it?

The monitoring could in some case be economically benefical i.e. identifying people who are at high risk of diabetes and making lifestyle changes to avoid it.

Also, were I a young person I would want those near retirement age with a private pension to retire early in order to fee up employment opportunities for me.

To a degree that is happening. There is a lifetime allowance on pensions (LTA) causing some people to retire early (to avoid a high tax burden). Those people will include GPs, surgeons so this is very much a mixed blessing.

One of the effects of raising the state retirement age is that those who get a pension at 60 are choosing to carry on working removing employment opportunities from those younger than them.

Are you sure? We have almost full employment and that's with about half a million immigrants coming here every year.

Surely if any group is denied free NHS care it should be those aged 18 to 50 - less likely to get ill and private health care is more affordable.

This doesn't work if you are one of the unlucky ones.
Private health care premiums would rocket once you become ill.
Also current private health schemes exclude an awful lot - usually chronic and existing conditions. In fact I'd say the current incarnations whilst a godsend in certain situations e.g. immediate physio, are quite limited in scope.

Cakeguts

Is is all very well blaming this on old people. The cost is not in helping old people the cost is in the money needed to fund the care of the severely disabled young people who have been disabled by the way they were conceived or had life preserved at all cost because they were born prematurely. There aren't any old people who were conceived using IVF at the moment and there aren't any young people who were born so prematurely that they had to be on life support. These things were not invented when today's elderly were born so by definition the elderly of today have cost less to the NHS than some younger people living now will when they are old.

lisyloo

I think your point is half correct but we are also keeping elderly people alive much longer than they would have lived in the past.
Examples are the reduction in death rates from heart attacks, strokes and cancer.
Although they may come from hardier stock before the gene pool was diluted, they will survive cancer/strokes/heart attacks to face numerous conditions in older age e.g. diabetes, dimensia.

Cakeguts

lisyloo wrote: »

I think your point is half correct but we are also keeping elderly people alive much longer than they would have lived in the past.
Examples are the reduction in death rates from heart attacks, strokes and cancer.
Although they may come from hardier stock before the gene pool was diluted, they will survive cancer/strokes/heart attacks to face numerous conditions in older age e.g. diabetes, dimensia.

Yes but many of the old people also paid for the NHS when working and are now paying tax. The young disabled who are disabled by when they were born or how they were conceived will never pay anything into the system at all. Their parents will but that will probably only cover their own needs from the NHS when they are older.

ruperts

Sapphire wrote: »

You're talking about someone who is seriously ill here, and who is obviously failing and suffering badly – in such cases, treatment is withheld by medical staff. I have seen this happen in one case in my family, where there was simply no hope of the person improving. The family were consulted about this.

But that's quite different from murdering someone by withholding treatment that can actually help them to still enjoy life. My grandmother was nearly 100 when she died, after having led a life that was useful and productive to society. She was quite fit, not unhappy, didn't have dementia, could hold conversations and even read a lot until a couple of years before she died. There's no way someone like that should be murdered – and there's no way my family would ever condone such a thing towards someone who was a valued family member.

Think some people, like the provocative OP, are hoping to regress to something like the Georgian period, two centuries ago, when children and adults were actually living and dying in the streets of London, the health of the population having improved to the extent that many more people were being born than were dying, causing massive overpopulation (despite the diseases that were still prevalent at the time, though no more plagues)…

I strongly disagree that asking people of a certain old age to pay directly for any further treatment they require can be classed as murder.

As for children dying in the streets, the whole point of my OP which I referred to several times was that the money saved could be diverted to those most in need and I specified suffering children as one such group.

Those against this idea are all ignoring the fact that we have a limited pot of money and every pound that is spent on keeping a 90-year-old ticking over is a pound that cannot then be spent on helping a suffering child. Until you're willing to get to grips with that most unfortunate but undeniable problem then you're not ready to join a discussion about potential solutions. I don't blame you for not being ready, it's quite an uncomfortable topic.

Cakeguts

ruperts wrote: »

I strongly disagree that asking people of a certain old age to pay directly for any further treatment they require can be classed as murder.

As for children dying in the streets, the whole point of my OP which I referred to several times was that the money saved could be diverted to those most in need and I specified suffering children as one such group.

Those against this idea are all ignoring the fact that we have a limited pot of money and every pound that is spent on keeping a 90-year-old ticking over is a pound that cannot then be spent on helping a suffering child. Until you're willing to get to grips with that most unfortunate but undeniable problem then you're not ready to join a discussion about potential solutions. I don't blame you for not being ready, it's quite an uncomfortable topic.

You are looking in the wrong place again. If you pay to keep a 90 year old going as you say that is going to stop in a few years. If you pay to keep a disabled baby going you are going to be paying for a life time of care. This is what is coming. Your generation will be paying for this care. The people who are in their 90s now will not be paying for disabled IVF and premature babies as adults in need of 24 hour care. When you become old the NHS will be caring for the elderly of your generation plus old disabled people. How are you going to justify not treating elderly disabled people who have a lifetime of NHS care?

zagubov

We need to face some quite sobering truths. We don't need to have so many kids as most are probably going to survive.

If we don't get to grips with what leads to disability in the elderly, we're going to have some unfortunate people who will outlive their brains and minds.

All this hand-wringing about how we haven't got enough money to deal with this is nonsense on stilts. Dealing with this is exactly what money is for.

Despite what all the advertising for trainers/breakfast cereals/internet companies would have you believe.

Sapphire

Cakeguts wrote: »

You are looking in the wrong place again. If you pay to keep a 90 year old going as you say that is going to stop in a few years. If you pay to keep a disabled baby going you are going to be paying for a life time of care. This is what is coming. Your generation will be paying for this care. The people who are in their 90s now will not be paying for disabled IVF and premature babies as adults in need of 24 hour care. When you become old the NHS will be caring for the elderly of your generation plus old disabled people. How are you going to justify not treating elderly disabled people who have a lifetime of NHS care?

Yes – the 90-year-old in my family who died recently didn't even cost the NHS that much. He always hated hospitals and was never hospitalised throughout his lifetime until he was 90 (he lived at home with his wife, though in the end he couldn't walk or see much). Carers came twice a day to cook for him during the last year of his life, but that was it (he didn't have dementia). Ultimately, he got pneumonia and had palliative care in hospital for about two weeks until he died, without really suffering as far as we could see, but the care team discussed his care and prospects with us and we made decisions based on that (they did find a slow-growing cancer).

He had been shot twice during the war, but wasn't hospitalised even for that, spending a year in a German POW camp instead. Other than that, I can never even remember him going to a doctor, despite smoking until he was hospitalised.

Who is to say who is more 'deserving' and who deserves to live and die? However, I'd say someone who has a huge family and is living off taxpayers for decades without intending to work (an 'ethic' also passed to the offspring) is a much bigger burden on society than someone like the above, who worked hard all his life, lived modestly, paid his taxes, didn't claim any benefits, and went through much tougher times than people do nowadays in Britain.

zagubov

Let's make the age of your death the point where you can't claim from the NHS.

Perhaps after that that should then be the time when you pay in by offering your organs or tissues to those in need - as the average person can add 56 years of life to other people by donating organs on their death.

There should be full consideration of any religious objections which should be registered before the death. Otherwise the default option should be that you're opting in as a donor.

Cakeguts

The problem with the elderly argument is that it seems that it is fine to withdraw treatment from an elderly person who isn't going to get better because they are old but it is not fine to withdraw treatment from a child who is brain damaged and not going to get any better. I can't see the difference. People are people you can't morally have different rules just because someone is young or just because someone is old. Either you treat them both equally and give the care or you treat them both equally and don't give the care. A son or daughter has as much right to treatment for a parent as a parent has for a child.