Placing house in a trust

sheramber

sevenhills said:

Zanderman said:

If you're happy to be put in the cheapest available council-funded care (when council funding is less and less available, so quality lower and lower) then that's fine.  I wouldn't want to be.

My mother spent her later life on benefits and ended up in care, the homes that she was in were not much different to the home my aunt is in. I had two aunties that were in care homes, perhaps better quality homes. Perhaps having close relatives in care homes means I could end up in one, although my father lived alone untill his death. I have read that these homes can cost above £500 per week.

There may be a difference, I don't know.

It funding your own care you can choose which home you go into, particularly if you want to be in one near family and friends.
With local authority care you do not have a choice.  Some are good, some not so.  
You might end up in a good but you may not. 

If you pass your house to a trust for your children, what happens of the children die before you?

 

zagfles

eskbanker said:

sevenhills said:
I believe rich and poorer people should be treated the same.

Means-testing is a sound principle to ensure that financial assistance is deployed to those who need it - it would clearly be possible to eliminate it and have everyone's later life care funded by the state, whether or not they could afford to pay for it, but that would entail an additional taxation burden for all for the benefit of the richer, which is hardly going to be a vote-winner....

Means testing is not a "sound principle", if it is do you think we should use it for the NHS? If you get cancer, do a means test to see if you can afford to pay for your treatment. Yeah - why not, if it's such a "sound principle".

Means testing benefits the rich. It hits middle income people. It's neutral for the poor. Generally taxation increases with income/wealth (if we ignore the myth that the rich don't pay tax, it's rubbish, most rich people pay or have paid much more in tax than those less rich), so by means testing you reduce the cost to the taxpayer, which benefits you more the more tax you pay.

A rich person who gets care paid by state is likely to have paid for it several times over in taxes, a middle income person who needs care is likely to have paid less tax towards that care than it costs, they get subsidised by those who never needed care.

justwhat

sheramber said:

If you pass your house to a trust for your children, what happens of the children die before you?

 

Many things can be stipulated in a trust , including what happens on the death of the children.  

Eldi_Dos

I have been struck by the range of views on the dispairity of wealth and the desire for rich and poorer people to be treated the same.Three Sundays ago at 8.30 in the morning my wife was inline outside our vaccination centre.behind her in the queue was one of the wealthiest men in our town, a man who has built up several businesses and been very successful. He was standing in the same queue as everyone else and I have no doubt was treated the same as everyone who went through those doors by the marvellous staff who are doing such good work for us all. I felt  humbled by it and count myself lucky to live in a country where we are all treated equal in the important things and can sometimes lose sight of how fortunate we are here to be on the right side of lifes lottery.

p00hsticks

There is a difference between treating people equally and treating people equitably

https://ces101fall2018.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/equity-versus-equality-triple-participation/

zagfles

p00hsticks said:

There is a difference between treating people equally and treating people equitably

https://ces101fall2018.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/equity-versus-equality-triple-participation/

I do find it odd that those who think inequity in outcome between different groups in society are down to structural discrimination (ie the unlevel ground/fence), are so very selective as to when they apply it. Some of the most significant difference in "equity" are things like health, life expectancy, prison population, child custody, suicide rates, educational attainment, homelessness - between men and women.

eskbanker

zagfles said:

eskbanker said:

sevenhills said:
I believe rich and poorer people should be treated the same.

Means-testing is a sound principle to ensure that financial assistance is deployed to those who need it - it would clearly be possible to eliminate it and have everyone's later life care funded by the state, whether or not they could afford to pay for it, but that would entail an additional taxation burden for all for the benefit of the richer, which is hardly going to be a vote-winner....

Means testing is not a "sound principle", if it is do you think we should use it for the NHS? If you get cancer, do a means test to see if you can afford to pay for your treatment. Yeah - why not, if it's such a "sound principle".

Means testing benefits the rich. It hits middle income people. It's neutral for the poor. Generally taxation increases with income/wealth (if we ignore the myth that the rich don't pay tax, it's rubbish, most rich people pay or have paid much more in tax than those less rich), so by means testing you reduce the cost to the taxpayer, which benefits you more the more tax you pay.

A rich person who gets care paid by state is likely to have paid for it several times over in taxes, a middle income person who needs care is likely to have paid less tax towards that care than it costs, they get subsidised by those who never needed care.

It is a sound principle in that it's a perfectly valid and justifiable approach, but clearly there are other options, so there's plenty of room for reasoned debate.  The NHS argument is just a strawman in the context of this thread, so I'm not advocating means-testing for primary care (or for state pensions if we're going to introduce other universal provisions into the conversation), but the point is that state funding of later life care costs is currently bracketed with other means-tested benefits, so if that was to change then there'd be a price to pay in additional taxation, although it's a fair point that this could potentially be slanted more towards the rich.

zagfles

eskbanker said:

zagfles said:

eskbanker said:

sevenhills said:
I believe rich and poorer people should be treated the same.

Means-testing is a sound principle to ensure that financial assistance is deployed to those who need it - it would clearly be possible to eliminate it and have everyone's later life care funded by the state, whether or not they could afford to pay for it, but that would entail an additional taxation burden for all for the benefit of the richer, which is hardly going to be a vote-winner....

Means testing is not a "sound principle", if it is do you think we should use it for the NHS? If you get cancer, do a means test to see if you can afford to pay for your treatment. Yeah - why not, if it's such a "sound principle".

Means testing benefits the rich. It hits middle income people. It's neutral for the poor. Generally taxation increases with income/wealth (if we ignore the myth that the rich don't pay tax, it's rubbish, most rich people pay or have paid much more in tax than those less rich), so by means testing you reduce the cost to the taxpayer, which benefits you more the more tax you pay.

A rich person who gets care paid by state is likely to have paid for it several times over in taxes, a middle income person who needs care is likely to have paid less tax towards that care than it costs, they get subsidised by those who never needed care.

It is a sound principle in that it's a perfectly valid and justifiable approach, but clearly there are other options, so there's plenty of room for reasoned debate.  The NHS argument is just a strawman in the context of this thread, so I'm not advocating means-testing for primary care (or for state pensions if we're going to introduce other universal provisions into the conversation), but the point is that state funding of later life care costs is currently bracketed with other means-tested benefits, so if that was to change then there'd be a price to pay in additional taxation, although it's a fair point that this could potentially be slanted more towards the rich.

If you're arguing that means testing is a "sound principle" then the NHS is not a strawman, if this "sound principle" applies to later life care costs why shouldn't it apply to NHS primary care? It's the same principle - costs might be incurred if you get cancer and need treatment, costs might be incurred if you get Alzheimers and need care, if it's a matter of principle then what's the difference?

Of course you could argue that means testing later life care costs should apply but means testing cancer treatment shouldn't, but then clearly it's not down to principle, it's down to making a choice to fund different forms of care differently. I suppose the main argument is that later life care tends to be a one way journey so it matters less if you have to spend your entire life savings and house on it.

eskbanker

zagfles said:

eskbanker said:

zagfles said:

eskbanker said:

sevenhills said:
I believe rich and poorer people should be treated the same.

Means-testing is a sound principle to ensure that financial assistance is deployed to those who need it - it would clearly be possible to eliminate it and have everyone's later life care funded by the state, whether or not they could afford to pay for it, but that would entail an additional taxation burden for all for the benefit of the richer, which is hardly going to be a vote-winner....

Means testing is not a "sound principle", if it is do you think we should use it for the NHS? If you get cancer, do a means test to see if you can afford to pay for your treatment. Yeah - why not, if it's such a "sound principle".

Means testing benefits the rich. It hits middle income people. It's neutral for the poor. Generally taxation increases with income/wealth (if we ignore the myth that the rich don't pay tax, it's rubbish, most rich people pay or have paid much more in tax than those less rich), so by means testing you reduce the cost to the taxpayer, which benefits you more the more tax you pay.

A rich person who gets care paid by state is likely to have paid for it several times over in taxes, a middle income person who needs care is likely to have paid less tax towards that care than it costs, they get subsidised by those who never needed care.

It is a sound principle in that it's a perfectly valid and justifiable approach, but clearly there are other options, so there's plenty of room for reasoned debate.  The NHS argument is just a strawman in the context of this thread, so I'm not advocating means-testing for primary care (or for state pensions if we're going to introduce other universal provisions into the conversation), but the point is that state funding of later life care costs is currently bracketed with other means-tested benefits, so if that was to change then there'd be a price to pay in additional taxation, although it's a fair point that this could potentially be slanted more towards the rich.

If you're arguing that means testing is a "sound principle" then the NHS is not a strawman, if this "sound principle" applies to later life care costs why shouldn't it apply to NHS primary care? It's the same principle - costs might be incurred if you get cancer and need treatment, costs might be incurred if you get Alzheimers and need care, if it's a matter of principle then what's the difference?

Of course you could argue that means testing later life care costs should apply but means testing cancer treatment shouldn't, but then clearly it's not down to principle, it's down to making a choice to fund different forms of care differently. I suppose the main argument is that later life care tends to be a one way journey so it matters less if you have to spend your entire life savings and house on it.

You're using 'principle' in a different sense from me (my use of 'sound principle' could perhaps be rephrased as 'valid methodology') but I do agree that "it's down to making a choice to fund different forms of care differently" - this is all about political choices!  I can't say I've devoted vast amounts of time researching it, but to the best of my knowledge the current differential treatment of funding primary versus later life care will have prevailed since the creation of the NHS in 1948 so there have been many governments who could have chosen to extend the state's responsibilities over that time if they'd felt the need to, so the current government is just perpetuating the longstanding status quo....

sevenhills

eskbanker said:

I can't say I've devoted vast amounts of time researching it, but to the best of my knowledge the current differential treatment of funding primary versus later life care will have prevailed since the creation of the NHS in 1948 so there have been many governments who could have chosen to extend the state's responsibilities over that time if they'd felt the need to, so the current government is just perpetuating the longstanding status quo....

More people are richer and those richer people are living longer, so more likely to need health care. Dementia is much more common, rather than just a rare occurrence.

In England, nearly half, 46% of care home residents are part or fully funded by their local authority, which means 54% pay for their own care.

Where councils fund care homeplaces, they must pay the full costs unless the person chooses a home that is more expensive than what the council would pay. However, this system is widely abused with an estimated quarter of council-funded residents being asked to ‘top-up’ their care fees9even though they have not chosen a more expensive home.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/policy-positions/care-and-support/ppp_care_homes.pdf