Have you got insurance to cover your old age care ?

[krusty]

"OVER-50s living in France could be required to take out compulsory insurance to help pay for their future care needs, a parliamentary report has recommended.

The National Assembly's social affairs committee says the state cannot afford to spend more than the current €22bn a year on elderly people who have lost their autonomy.

The report recommends a compulsory private insurance package, called assurance dépendance, which would go to cover the cost of home help or moving into a care home.

According to Le Monde, some insurers are already offering a similar package, priced between €20 and €30 a month, which pays up to €1,000 a month towards care bills."

link here

[pachapapa]

Sounds like a shady lawyers scheme to get away with the € 22 billion.

Now! What's his name?[:)]

[Keni]

Sounds remarkably like the same package being put forward in the Uk, whereby citizens may be made to stump up £20,000! when retiring to pay for future care!!!

Ok, all of you with a spare 20K in your pocket when you retire, please alert D.Cameron at 10 Dow........

[pachapapa]

Personally I would prefer to keep the £ 20,000 for my own health requirements than throw it away in a bureaucratic pot-pourri.

[Baz]

[quote user="pachapapa"]Personally I would prefer to keep the £ 20,000 for my own health requirements than throw it away in a bureaucratic pot-pourri.[/quote]

If you take current care home costs in the UK in excess of £2000 per month then that would pay for less than 20 months,  may be enough if you know the date of your demise.

Baz

[pachapapa]

[quote user="Baz"]

[quote user="pachapapa"]Personally I would prefer to keep the £ 20,000 for my own health requirements than throw it away in a bureaucratic pot-pourri.[/quote]

If you take current care home costs in the UK in excess of £2000 per month then that would pay for less than 20 months,  may be enough if you know the date of your demise.

Baz

[/quote]

But I thought health care was free under the national health service. I am sorry to learn that it is after all a Ponzi Scheme with a deficit and no vested interest for participants.

[cooperlola]

As I have no kids to take care of me in my old age I had always assumed that if I were too infirm to care for myself then my home would be sold to pay for it.  Thus 20k sounds like a bargain to me.

[Chris Head]

Then there are those of us who will be astonished to make it to retirement age!

[mint]

And those who will be glad just to make it through lunch!

[BIG MAC]

And those of us just glad to have a lunch to get through ;-)

[mint]

Blimey, when did things get this bad?

[Swissie]

People in the UK complain about having to sell house to pay for care. But it is the same in most countries. My mil's flat in the UK was sold to pay for her OAP home for 4 years, suffering from Alzheimers. My parents' house was sold to pay for their care here in Switzerland - in both cases we were left with very little. We certainly intend to give as much as we can to our kids when we reach age 70, if we do. Certainly I am glad I live in a country where I will have the choice to opt out when I've had enough. Age is unimportant, dad was as fit as a fiddle until he died aged 96. Mum on the other hand lived at least 10 years too long - and was force fed and stuffed with antitbiotics regularly, against her very clear wishes and living will - she kept asking to be left to die - but was kept alive by over-zealous evangelical types. There comes a time beyond the loss of all dignity, when it's time to let go - if a living-will makes that very clear and it is a choice.

[Swissie]

Watch Panorama now.

[Jon02]

As I recall the average care home stay is only about 14 months. So that should cover it.

[pachapapa]

[quote user="Jon02"]As I recall the average care home stay is only about 14 months. So that should cover it.
[/quote]

My mother, 92, died last year. After being cared for in her home for three months by members of the family with daily visits by the Macmillan nurse she was moved into a hospice.

The care and attention in the hospice was outstanding and after four weeks she had recovered so much that she was moved to a care home.

I was appalled at the standard of care and attention in the care home but it only took less than three weeks before dying.

It is sad to see old people being subjected to squalid and degrading conditions just to make an extra buck.

[woolybanana]

If this death is introduced, the corollary must be that standards will have to improve significantly in care homes, owners will have to be vetted appropriately and nurses trained properly too.

[krusty]

What are the standards like in French care homes ?

[velcorin]

[quote user="krusty"]

What are the standards like in French care homes ?

[/quote]

Best not ask. And don't read the papers. [Www]

[mint]

[quote user="pachapapa"]

It is sad to see old people being subjected to squalid and degrading conditions just to make an extra buck.

[/quote]

I couldn't agree more. 

About 20 years ago OH (who has had a hand in these things but not as an owner) said that every bed in a home was worth about £22K to the owner.  Don't know what they are worth now.

We used to live near a couple of these homes (after all, our town was known locally as "God's Waiting Room"), and I couldn't for the life of me see what could justify the amounts of money that the homes charged their clients.

Want an boiled egg at tea-time?  That will be 50p extra.

Want your hair washed?  Wait till the mobile hairdresser calls (and you can then pay him/her direct)

Want to change your nightie more often?  Yes, and the extra laundry bill is.....

Indeed, to see these elderly folk sitting hour after hour in some dingy, dimly-lit communal room is to break your heart.

Of course, I don't say ALL nursing homes are like that but I am recounting what I have seen with my own eyes.

Years ago, homes for the elderly were run by local atuthorities (no profit involved then) but, of course, as much else (dare I say under Thatcher), there was a massive deregulation programme and these services were taken over by the private sector.

Private sector.....I think I'd need to call it Profit sector.

[Swissie]

[quote user="krusty"]

What are the standards like in French care homes ?

[/quote]

All the staff at the OAP homes my mus was in for 3 years and dad for 1 - were French. We live just over the Swiss border. The standard of care was absolutely topnotch- and in the case of my mum, too much so - and their tender care pushed her to live much much beyond her wishes. I used to chat to staff a lot on our daily visits, and all of them said they would NOT wish to work in a French OAP home and had great concerns about what would happen to their parents in France.

My mil's home in the UK was excellent too - private and cost a fortune. After 3 years, her Alzheimers got worse and they told us that she would have to go in a specialised home - they were all so dreadful, and we were broken hearted for her. We didn't know if she had taken the news in, as by then she would not communicate, and we didn't even know if she recognized us on our monthly visits from Leics to Surrey- my sil's went at least 3 times a week, and mil thought she was her mum! Anyway, she was found dead in her bed on the morning of the move. Coincidence? Or some sort of choice she made? Or was she helped by a member of staff who had got very fond of her? Whichever- we were so happy for her that she had left this miserable existence before it got much worse, and lost every little bit of dignity she had got left. It was such a relief. We all got a little bit left to share- we bought a week's timeshare in the most beautiful place in Tuscany, and drink to her health every year. Why should we have benefited from the hugely inflated value of her property and ask taxpayer to pay. Same for my parents - very little left - and we will enjoy the patio and balcony and have a drink to their health there too.

[5-element]

[quote user="velcorin"][quote user="krusty"]

What are the standards like in French care homes ?

[/quote]

Best not ask. And don't read the papers. [Www]

[/quote]

Velcorin, is this the sort of thing you were thinking about? (this is part of a TV programme, all in French of course, and quite long but revealing)

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x77yul_les-infiltres-maltraitance-en-maiso_news

[Thibault]

Quote:   Years ago, homes for the elderly were run by local authorities (no profit involved then) but, of course, as much else (dare I say under Thatcher), there was a massive deregulation programme and these services were taken over by the private sector.  Unquote

In one of my earlier incarnations, I was Supplies Officer for a local authority's care homes and part of my job was to accept tenders for various services - purchase of food, funerals, etc.  The budget I had to work to for food was something like £1.50 per resident, per week.  Even then, it was difficult to achieve. 

[mint]

So....?  My point is not that costs, etc. couldn't be raised.  It is that at least there were no huge amounts of profit for owners of the homes.

And, when a resident in a private home can no longer pay, what do you think happens?  Doesn't the government step in to pay?  For government, read tax payers.

New system, old system:  that's not the point.  The point is that there shouldn't be a profit made on the elderly and vulnerable in a deregulated industry (I use the word industry advisedly) where money (privately from the residents and publicly from tax payers), is siphoned into the pockets of some pretty unscrupulous and greedy individuals (again, I qualify by not saying ALL residential home owners).

PS  I don't mind being quoted but it would be nice if you could use the whole post instead of just using parts of it out of context.

[Russethouse]

Why should we have benefited from the hugely inflated value of her property and ask taxpayer to pay

And why should people who have had their rents subsidised for many years and sometimes be  paid very little into the system be subsidised by those who worked hard, had a more responsible attitude, and paid tax when they earned the money, and on their savings, year after year ?

If someone made a profit on stocks and shares would it be the same ? Or a day at the races....Those with 'real money' can afford to protect it....

My mothers carers (at her home) cost £2100 per month, she can't claim a penny in attendance allowance for 6 months and we pay a more expensive rate for'self funders'  local authorities get a discount...so basically they get you every which way.

She is immobile but that doesn't count as being ill...

 Until September should a carer not be up to scratch, you have no recourse, other than the company.....and believe me, we had one that was rude and inefficient, left my mother vulnerable by not closing the door, left the kitchen tap (hot) running all night, thus draining the tank, left two fridge doors open thus making £££s worth of food inedible etc......obviously we no longer have a contract with the company she works for.

[mint]

Exactly what I was trying to point out, RH.

Substandard care at an obscenely high cost (to whomever, individual or LA).