Wanless Report - care of the elderly

[Russethouse]

I agree Dotty, the fact often is that the person who has looked after themselves, saved etc is so often the one who has paid, paid, paid to the government coffers. Yet some shirker who has claimed, for no good reason for much of their adult life, gets it all free. Of course there are others who can't pay through no fault of their own. Thats different.

Another concern is that there are less and less care homes, actually in this area the staff are not that badly paid, but many of these homes are in good, residential areas in substantial grounds, if a developer thinks he cn get planning permission, or even do a conversion, its very tempting for the owner to just sell up.

Pat, if your mother needed 24 hour care, surely that should have been a medical reason ?

 

 

[KathyC]

As someone said, a touchy subject. Saving up to contribute to your care in your old age seems reasonable enough to me, and if your form of saving has been your house then it is likely that it will need to be sold. I wonder how many people who complain about this are the children of the elderly (who feel cheated of their inheritance) rather than the elderly themselves?

( Pat, I know care is very expensive but don't you think that you might have added an extra nought to your second figure? Apologies if I'm wrong but I don't think that there are many care homes that charge £180,000 pa.)

[Dotty0]

KathyC

I think you will find its mainly the older people themselves that complain.  We have told both sets of our parents that they should sell up and go on world cruises until they have spent it all.  I would much rather they enjoyed their hard earned cash now, then have to sell up to keep themselves in an old folks home.

Dotty

[KathyC]

Gay

I don't know where you live but in my area pay for care workers is a scandal. Most are on minimum wage, with senior care assistants usually only a few pence an hour over that. The work is skilled and not always pleasant and it's hardly surprising that standards are often low.

One of the frustrating things about the welfare state is that those who can seem less than deserving often seem to benefit the most. Unfortunately it is a price we have to pay for living in a caring society, and most of the time I'm prepared to pay it. On the other hand, let's keep this in proportion. Rather than this talk of "working fingers to the bone" etc, many people have simply held a job and paid their mortgage. Nothing wrong with that of course, but not particularly praise worthy. If they/we end up in retirement with a valuable property then this has usually resulted from galloping house inflation rather than any superhuman effort of theirs/ours.

[Russethouse]

Same here Dotty - my father actually wanted to leave us something! We kept saying spend it, and he didn't want to.

 No one seems to say why its fair for one person to pay but not the other ?

Kathy,While my father worked hard he loved his job, but people like him have paid tax while they earned, and paid it on their savings and pensions too, then when my mother dies there will be inheritance tax to pay. If you took say £100 and took that little lot out, how much is left ? Its the same sector of society being hit, time and time again.

There is a group of homes near to where my mother lives, I think three owned by the same company, they never seem to have trouble recruiting and people tend to stay in those jobs, so I can only think the pay isn't that bad. Although one takes people who are less well, as opposed to being unable to cope alone, if they are actually ill, they go to hospital. 

[KathyC]

Dotty

It's perhaps more a question of encouraging parents to spend their money rather than leaving it to their children. A totally different situation than encouraging them to spend it to save paying for care home fees. Not everyone would be so encouraging of such profligacy if they thought that they would be the losers rather than the state.

[JohnM]

[quote user="KathyC"]

if your form of saving has been your house then it is likely that it will need to be sold.

[/quote]

Yes, if your home is your form of saving, then why not sell it. But if your home is your love, your memories, your passion and it needs to be sold to pay for visiting carers, then that's a different matter.

It's a difficult subject and there really isn't a fit all solution.

[KathyC]

Gay

Sorry about this, but whoever said that life was fair?

[Russethouse]

[quote user="KathyC"]

Dotty

It's perhaps more a question of encouraging parents to spend their money rather than leaving it to their children. A totally different situation than encouraging them to spend it to save paying for care home fees. Not everyone would be so encouraging of such profligacy if they thought that they would be the losers rather than the state.

[/quote]

Try telling that to the guys who roll out of the pub into the bookies on pay day[Www]

[KathyC]

[quote user="JohnM"][quote user="KathyC"]

 

[/quote]

 But if your home is your love, your memories, your passion and it needs to be sold to pay for visiting carers, then that's a different matter.

[/quote]

You're right about there being no easy solution and the example given would of course be a wrench. Although care at home fees are means tested, I thought that the value of your property was not taken into account. I may be wrong.

[Russethouse]

>>Sorry about this, but whoever said that life was fair?<<<

Society as whole seems to have moved to even-ing out the difference that make life unfair, we do our best to treat people of all races, women, children, people of different sexual preferences etc as equally as possible - what would be so wrong in making someones last days as equal too ?

[KathyC]

But that's what we actually do. As somebody wrote, the person in one room has nothing, the person in the adjacent room is comfortably off. In their final days they are equal. What would you want to see, the well off ending up in comfort and the shiftless in the poorhouse? That might be fair, but it wouldn't be equal.

I think that if you enquired into what the care assistants were actually paid, rather than making assumptions, you might be very surprised. Fortunately for the elderly, as for the very young, some people stay in jobs for other reasons than good wages.

[Russethouse]

 Yes I agree, everyone should have equality of care - but they should also pay equally too, not penalize some of them!

[KathyC]

But how can someone with no money pay for their care? That's why the state pays it. I don't (most of the time) mind my taxes going to pay for people with no money, but I sure as hell object to paying for the care of those who are comfortably off, just so that their children should inherit large sums of money for which they've done absolutely nothing!

 

[Russethouse]

I'm not suggesting anyone with no money pays for their care, I am suggesting that once a person has paid there tax & NI what they do with the money it is their business, no one elses ! They can leave it to the kids, go on world cruises, whatever - As I said earlier, just look at what the government gets in inheriance tax - the truly wealthy make sure they pay as little as possible, those with not so much don't pay anyway and the group in the middle never stop paying - how can that be equal or fair ?

[Dotty0]

In which case we should be given an option as to whether our NI contribution will go towards our retirement if we are forced to sell our homes to keep us when we are even older and greyer.

My parents have never been flushed andas kids we always made do. My parents worked hard to pay off their mortgage when they were in their fifties and they have always said they want the proceeds from their property to go to the family.  As I said beforeI want them to go and have a bloomin good time, but I can't force them.  It just seems a shame that one day they may be forced to sell up and their wishes will not be forfilled.

Dotty

[KathyC]

Of course people can do what they like with their money, but while they're doing what they like with it, who pays for their care? I'm afraid I take an unorthodox stance on these things:

Person 1. Chooses not to work or save, gets money from the state. Money undeserved.

Person 2. Inherits money. Money undeserved.

Person 3. Buys house for £50,000, does nothing but live in it for 10 years except paying mortgage. Sells it for £250,000. Money undeserved.

Nobody's doing anything illegal, that's just the way life is; as I said, unfair. And by the way, before anybody asks, I've been in all 3 categories at various times myself.

To put it another way, in the words of WS

""Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping" Hamlet

( Just to raise the tone of the debate!)

 

[SaligoBay]

[quote user="Dotty0"]

My parents have never been flushed andas kids we always made do. My parents worked hard to pay off their mortgage when they were in their fifties and they have always said they want the proceeds from their property to go to the family.  [/quote]

Dotty, did you know that in France your estate goes to your children?   You can't disown your children or anything like that, or leave your fortune to the local cat home. 

I'm only saying that because it's a difference that many people may not know about.  It means that French people have different expectations.

[Deimos]

Person 1. Chooses not to work or save, gets money from the state. Money undeserved.

Person 2. Inherits money. Money undeserved.

Person 3. Buys house for £50,000, does nothing but live in it for 10 years except paying mortgage. Sells it for £250,000. Money undeserved.

Nobody's doing anything illegal, that's just the way life is; as I said, unfair. And by the way, before anybody asks, I've been in all 3 categories at various times myself.

To put it another way, in the words of WS

""Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping" Hamlet

( Just to raise the tone of the debate!)

I might add a few more:

Person contributes all their lives into their pension fund – which turns out to be worthless and they retire broke – fair/unfair ?

Person contributes all their lives to their company pension fund company goes bust and pension fund disappears (but directors are all fine) – fair/unfair ?

Etc.

With pensions performing so poorly, with the government adding taxes to pension funds making them even more worthless, one will probably end up with very little in retirement even if you do save.

(The funds performing so poorly is certainly the case for my own pensions – I’d have been better off investing in notes in my mattress).

Ian

ps. I tried cutting and pasting but it still comes out "all cryptic"

[Patf]

Gay - yes Mum should really have gone into what was then called a

nursing home, but the place she chose agreed to take her. She was

paralysed on the right side and needed lifting for everything. Kathy I

agree with all you say  and you express it better than I can. Also

did put one 0 too many on the second cost estimate. Pat.

[Russethouse]

I simply don't see why person A) who lives in rented property, decides to spend their money, has nothing left to contribute, should expect person B) who chooses to save their money, with the purpose of leaving something to their children, to pay, while they don't. They have both made their choices, whether the person inheriting the money deserves it is neither here nor there, thats like saying does a person deserve being allowed to go down the pub or have a flutter !Its the choice of the person giving it to them.

As you asked Kathy, I looked at the Ads my mothers local paper for Care assistants. (bought the paper esp too [:(])The rates start as £7.55 per hour and go up to £9.75 for weekend for weekend work. The local supermarket pays £6.50, weekend work does not attract overtime (BTW off topic, but where my mother lives it's difficult to get paperboys & girls, so pensioners do it - they get £50 per week !!!)

[KathyC]

Gay

Aren't you making the assumption that people who live in rented accommodation do so because it's cheaper?  Seems to me that it's often dearer. What about people who can't afford to buy? The point I'm making is that it's all pretty arbitrary, sometimes down to luck and sometimes down to effort. "Deserves" might  have been the wrong word. "Unearned" might have been a better one, whether referring to benefits, inheritance or house price inflation. None of it has been earned.

Carers are obviously better paid where you live than is the norm, but do you really want your poor old mum to be looked after by someone who's bringing home about 24 quid (for a full week's work) more than they would get from stacking shelves at Tesco?

PS Hope you enjoyed the paper.

[Dotty0]

KathyC

If you rent a property you can get housing benefit which is earnings related.  If you have a mortgage you get sod all.  If somebody earns a relatively low wage, and needs to be looked after by the state in their twilight years I think that's fine, that's what the state is there for.  But when somebody has made sacrifices to own their home, why on earth should they be forced to sell it.  They have already paid their way, why on earth should they have to pay again.

Its not about the less well off going without.  I don't think anybody here thinks that either.  But why on earth be penalised for being careful with the pennies.

Dotty

 

 

 

 

[KathyC]

Yes Dotty, but who should pay the fees for this person? Do you really not mind your taxes paying for the care of somebody who is much better off than you are? I'm obviously not as nice a person as you are, because I mind a great deal!!

The more I read here, the more it seems to me that the French have got this question worked out. Let the children inherit the property, but let them also pay for their parents' care. Problem sorted!

[Dotty0]

But Kathy, do you mind giving up part of your hard earned money in the form of taxes to pay for somebody that hasn't done a days work in his life, that lives on government handouts, getting themselves into permenant debt because when they do receive their benefits they spend it on cheap lager and fags.  When you do reach an certain age and can't look after themselves any longer, you are quite happy to continue supporting them by way of a nursing home.

If a person is wealthier than me, I'm pretty sure they have paid a lot more into the system than I have. So no, I don't mind.

Do you?

Dotty