the snap general election thread

kabayiri

Personally, I liked the idea of everyone paying a one-off charge for specific social care insurance, a charge which could be deferred until death/sale of the family home.

The trouble is that even this might not be enough. Medical technology is allowing people to live ever longer, but often with some fairly complex medical conditions and increasing support needs.

What do we do? Well, we *should* have a frank and open non-political discussion about euthanasia; about automation and robots to support personal care; about supporting family structures where the group can look after elderly parents.

My uncle is physically intact, but mentally he has completely gone. Why can't we let the family choose euthanasia and have a planned big bash to say goodbye? Right now, his wife is witnessing a living death in her own home.

BobQ

Conrad wrote: »

I look at like this; we can either all pay more tax so that some children can inherit their parents property in full, or we can each use our homes to fund our own personal care.

Or we can tax all estates by an amount that is enough to fund care for those unlucky enough to need it for more than say 6 months?

Arklight

setmefree2 wrote: »

At the moment if you are an old person living at home - they strip you of all you savings down to £28,000. Under the new system they will strip you of all your savings down to £100,000.

Under the new system anyone with assets above £100k will pay for their own social care. This is pretty much every Tory voting pensioner and baby boomer.


If you are unlucky enough to have to access this care, the value of your house less £100,000 will be indentured, and provided to you in the form of a loan.


When the loan funds have been exhausted you will get "free" care, except you will still be liable for the interest on your loan, which will be taken from your estate on your death.


If your house is worth £101,000 and your loan is £1000 you will keep most of your £100k.


If your house is worth £500k, paying an average of £35k a year care fees, your equity will be gone in 12 years. You will then be left paying interest on a £400k loan.


The more equity you have and the longer you live the less money you will end up with. It's highly possible people with valuable properties will finish their lives with nothing.


It's a stupid policy. It's poorly thought out, heartless, a wealth transfer to bankers from a government that has no interest whatsoever in offering social care to those in need, and a complete disincentive to bother saving any money at all for retirement.


It is in otherwords, exactly the kind of thing I would expect the Tories to come up with.


It's just not many of us expected them to come out with it just before an election...


https://fullfact.org/health/conservative-manifesto-2017-adult-social-care/

Moby

Arklight wrote: »

Under the new system anyone with assets above £100k will pay for their own social care. This is pretty much every Tory voting pensioner and baby boomer.


If you are unlucky enough to have to access this care, the value of your house less £100,000 will be indentured, and provided to you in the form of a loan.


When the loan funds have been exhausted you will get "free" care, except you will still be liable for the interest on your loan, which will be taken from your estate on your death.


If your house is worth £101,000 and your loan is £1000 you will keep most of your £100k.


If your house is worth £500k, paying an average of £35k a year care fees, your equity will be gone in 12 years. You will then be left paying interest on a £400k loan.


The more equity you have and the longer you live the less money you will end up with. It's highly possible people with valuable properties will finish their lives with nothing.


It's a stupid policy. It's poorly thought out, heartless, a wealth transfer to bankers from a government that has no interest whatsoever in offering social care to those in need, and a complete disincentive to bother saving any money at all for retirement.


It is in otherwords, exactly the kind of thing I would expect the Tories to come up with.


It's just not many of us expected them to come out with it just before an election...


https://fullfact.org/health/conservative-manifesto-2017-adult-social-care/

What makes me laugh if this was a labour policy.....imagine the uproar! There are going to be lots of private care companies rubbing their hands with glee. The same companies that employ their staff on zero hour contracts!

Arklight

Moby wrote: »

What makes me laugh if this was a labour policy.....imagine the uproar! There are going to be lots of private care companies rubbing their hands with glee. The same companies that employ their staff on zero hour contracts!

The Daily Mail tried to spin this yesterday as part of the overall train wreck that was Theresa's manifesto.


Nevertheless the comments were exploding - mostly about this. I was encouraged to see that it appears that there is a limit to the amount of !!!!!! even Mail readers will put up with.


They've buried the entire manifesto story now.

Arklight

Moby wrote: »

What makes me laugh if this was a labour policy.....imagine the uproar! There are going to be lots of private care companies rubbing their hands with glee. The same companies that employ their staff on zero hour contracts!

Haha - the missus just text me to say she was in the village charity shop and the two old ladies in there were complaining about the Tories and saying they hadn't worked to pay off their mortgages their whole lives just to have it all taken from them.


I'll go round there later with some Labour flyers.

POPPYOSCAR

My Oh shocked me this morning.

He said he would vote Labour now if Jeremy Corbyn was a more credible leader.

Never thought I would ever hear him say that!

gfplux

ThinkingOutLoud wrote: »

This is rather odd from you.

The WFL is a benefit paid currently to many who have perfectly decent incomes in retirement.The impact on them is at max a few hundred pounds not the many thousand of the Labour rich tax. I believe the aim I read was to give the WFA to any who receive pension credit.

Should not benefits be focussed on those in greater need?
Your ability to help the poor is diluted if you give free money to the better off.
The money saved is to all go to social care.

There are plenty of posts here and elsewhere suggesting many better off pensioner feel the WFA is unnecessary for them. I am sure some will hate to lose it, but can afford to.

The Lib Dems proposed this way back too.

Odd?
OK If you say.
My point perhaps not well made is that the Labour Party's pledge to increase tax on those earning over £80,000 pa has had a mixed response.
It will be interesting to see the Tory means test level for WFA. Set too high and the cost of means testing will outway the savings. To make it a payment to those who REALLY NEED IT the bar will be set quite low.

This will make an interesting thread when (if) it is brought in during the Torys next budget, assuming they win.

gfplux

Arklight wrote: »

Happy to. I'm going out again tonight. Was out over the weekend where my Home Counties Conservative heartland elected a Lid Dem for the locals, for the first time. A lot of Labour and Green people voted tactically. Further afield we were very close in a lot of wards. In one we had a handful of votes 4 years ago and were 28 from winning outright this time.


The locals weren't great for Labour in terms of seats but there was a whole story of demographic shift and trendlines away from previously safe Tory councils that wasn't told in the media.


The sudden announcement of the GE has actually been quite helpful as we can keep that momentum going. There are also a lot of previously non voters, Green and Lib Dem people turning up to meetings who say they can't stand it any more and they just want the Tories out, and a feeling developing that we can do it.


The local Labour candidate for this area scheduled an hour for a town centre stall and she was late for the rest of the day because people were literally lining up down the street to meet her. And this is in a town where you'd have said there is no point Labour even turning up, a year ago.


It's a self fulfilling prophecy though, people think Labour can't win so they don't bother voting. The increase in party membership has added a lot of manpower, the more people see us out and about the more likely they are to turn out themselves.


However the people we need to reach and who should be voting Labour for self preservation are still hard to reach, The working poor, people on benefits, the unemployed, and young people not in HE. They are hard to reach physically (not in town centres of an afternoon, often live in flats where they don't answer the buzzer, don't want to be disturbed when they are putting their kids to bed).

Thank you again. Great stuff.
Your last para. It is really quite sad that this large group of non voters could easily change the complexion of British politics and also to their benefit.

gfplux

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

My Oh shocked me this morning.

He said he would vote Labour now if Jeremy Corbyn was a more credible leader.

Never thought I would ever hear him say that!

It's becoming understandable. The Labour manifesto has many very good things in it. It is difficult to argue against the sentiment of it.

Please, please let's not have an avalanche of posts talking about the cost of it.

I am talking about the morals of it. Frankly the Tory/UKIP axis have moved too far right (whatever Mrs May says) leaving a big gap in the sensible and caring middle ground.