General Chat

The Government is going to put a cap on how much a person pays for social care in their old age, it is being suggested that people will only have to pay the first £75,000 of their social care costs with the Government paying for the rest.

It appears that this will be funded by freezing the Inheritance Tax Threshold at it's present level and by setting a cap this means that pension companies and insurance companies will be able to offer policies to cover the first £75,000, and Nick Clegg has said this will ensure no one is forced to sell their home to pay for care in their lifetime, note "in their lifetime" :-)

Have I got this right :-S

1) The insurance companies will be able to offer policies to cover the first £75,000, well surely we can trust the insurance companies, of course we can most of them are owned by the banks ;-)

2) This will ensure no one is forced to sell their home to pay for care in their lifetime, they won't, but their children will as a result of the freeze of the Inheritance Tax Threshold :-(

I wonder why the phrases "give with one hand and take away with the other " and "robbing Peter to pay Paul" come to mind ;-)

Just been listening to an "expert" on the TV.
He says that the cap only applies to care. If a person goes into a home, the costs of food & accomodation will be charged as an extra.
So it sounds as though the overall cost will be the same, or possibly more.
You can always trust the politicians to come up with a generous offer.

So if you own a house you have to pay the policy or lose your house...what if you don't have a house..do you just get your care regardless?

If you have no money you go into a council care home and not a private one.

And if you have no money and no family you will probably have very little say in which council run care home you go to.

I am dreading the possibility of needing to go into care as I have no family to look out for my needs and it is frightening.

At least there are homes for people in your situation.
In Spain there is no provision unless you can pay.
Being in a similar situation PP & am beginning to seriously worry about what will happen. If OH & I both need care, there is no way our pensions will cover the cost, we don´t own a property, have minimal savings & no family to help out.
Dignitas looks like an option.

I for one am not surprised that this country cannot afford to provide proper care for the elderly and vulnerable in our society, especially when I look at a just a few of the things that Governments of all parties have spent our money on, for example:-

Our nuclear weapons program costs £5.5 Billion a year
The recent rail franchise fiasco's will cost about £100 million
Then there are the banks, putting aside the £330 Billion in Guarantees from the Government the banks still owe us around £130 Billion in hard cash for the loans we made to them and the cost of the shares we purchased, to bail them out, no one knows when we will get any of that back, that is if we ever do.

We also throw vast sums of money at the EU and the net amount we are paying to the EU I think is about £9 Billion a year

Then we have our overseas aid budget, it is said that after the U.S.A. we are the largest contributor of aid in the world, our aid budget is forecasted to be £12 Billion for 2013.

Before anyone decided to have a go at me about aid, let me say right away that I support helping "the people in under-developed countries," however we read daily reports that much of this aid never reaches those it was untended to help.

This is just some of the countries that our money went to:-

Somalia £4 Million
Yemen £51 Million
Iraq £10 Million
Pakistan £202 Million
Eritrea £4 Million
Laos £1 Million
Nigeria £141 Million
Mauritania £1 Million
Sudan £128 Million
Vietnam £55 Million
China £22 Million
Libya £1 Million
India £278 Million
Burma £31 Million
Tajikistan £9 Million
Ethiopia £250 Million
Jordan £1 Million
Indonesia £10 Million
Palestinian Territories £46 Million
Kyrgyzstan £3 Million
Bangladesh £174 Million