# Tory social care plans will leave people helpless, says former adviser



## Northerner (May 18, 2017)

The chair of the long-term care commission has attacked the Conservatives’ plan to make more elderly people pay for social care, saying it would leave people “completely on their own” to deal with future costs. 

Under the plans to be unveiled in the Tory manifesto on Thursday, people with more than £100,000 in assets will have to pay for their own care out of the value of their homes rather than relying on the council to cover the cost of visits by care workers.

Sir Andrew Dilnot, the economist who reviewed social care for the coalition government in 2011, expressed alarm at the plans and claimed they showed a misunderstanding of the problem.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...are-plan-example-market-failure-andrew-dilnot

So, the Tories spot another 'market opportunity' - create a new market for companies to fleece sick old people with ever-increasing costs till the money runs out  Or, rather, until their house becomes worth £100k, at which point any surviving spouse is trapped there for the remainder of their life because they won't be able to sell it and buy elsewhere


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## mikeyB (May 18, 2017)

So who pays when someone lives in rented accommodation all their days? Such people are likely to increase as house owning drops due to house price inflation and wage stagnation. Indeed, they may become the majority, as in Germany where home owners have always been in the minority. It may well become a disincentive to home owning. Spend all your money before you rot.


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## Amigo (May 18, 2017)

This is somewhat baffling to me. The suggestions seems to be that elderly people have to somehow release capital from their properties to fund home care in their own homes. How? Simply because people have a property that may have some value, it could be falling around their ears and they're in no position to improve it. Of course this has always been the position for people going into Care Homes. The Council would put a claim on the property to fund the Care at some point or the person would be completely self funding if they had over about £23,000 or had sold their house.
It punishes anyone who has ploughed all of their money into their home all their lives I'm afraid. The idea is to live in rented as Mike says and live the high life now! Not very public spirited but true!


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## trophywench (May 18, 2017)

I think that supposing it's a couple who live in a house worth £200,000 then each one of you is judged to have an asset of £100k - plus whatever you have besides.  If nowt extra - then they foot the bill.  Not, when one of you needs care but not the other one, you have to spend £100k.  However if the house is worth £300,000 each has £150k then has to spend the extra £50k.  The person in care then dies, the one left now has an asset of either £200k or £250k, so would have to contribute the extra £100k or £150k to their own care.

I dunno how inflation could be handled when whatever the original value of the house was, appreciates and thereby so does the person in car's asset - say you were 23 when you had your accident?  or what they do if prices go down!!

Whole scenario is a bloody nightmare to try and contemplate.  However if Brexit is anything to go by - they won't even have thought about it yet (after all - they're all younger than me and won't be in office by the time I have this problem - so whyever do they need to?)

Or - only folk like Steven and Brian will have the intellect to understand it.


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## mikeyB (May 18, 2017)

I'm not bothering to understanding it, because it's unlikely to be enacted in Scotland. If that, in their manifesto, persuades anyone to vote Tory they must be demented. That's the Tories looking after their core voters, the grey haired.


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## Amigo (May 18, 2017)

I'm with the old lady in the States who has permanently moved onto a cruise ship and has all her needs met, clothes washed, doctors on call, fabulous food, masses of company, pampered by staff and dances each evening! She's spending every penny she has with the blessing of her family and Skypes them each day. She no longer goes on the excursions and has the ship and staff largely to herself! 

She wins the most travelled/most miles cruiser every week too!


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## trophywench (May 19, 2017)

mikeyB said:


> I'm not bothering to understanding it, because it's unlikely to be enacted in Scotland. If that, in their manifesto, persuades anyone to vote Tory they must be demented. That's the Tories looking after their core voters, the grey haired.



I have a lot of grey by now, or I should have - and if you think this grey-hair is satisfied with what they've been doing over the last however hellishly long it's been, I suggest you have another think.  In fact - Maggie certainly had/still has a lot to answer for (even though I liked eg her 'Lady's not for turning' stance and the Falklands War (well not like, that one, but agreed)) and God knows how far we can go back accusing different ones of different things - but it does no good whatever doing that.  Yeah she's strong and stable alright fine and I'd admire it if she was putting her feted strength and stability into anything that I personally think is a good idea.  As she hasn't and isn't and now sounds so bloody minded about bloody Brexit I'm quite scared there will not be the proper, expert NEGOTIATION that is required for the damn job.

I don't think she's shown the ability to negotiate her way out of a bloody paper bag since she doesn't appear to have the imagination or talent to think about a problem in a different way - much like the cold callers with the scripts they have to follow and are utterly clueless what to do if you eg start singing halfway through or ask them how much they'd charge me for home flagellation.  (I never did the latter, I've only just thought of it, shame!) (and we don't need a patio laid anyway LOL)

She ain't looking after this grey hair anyway and shows no sign of doing so in future.


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## Northerner (May 19, 2017)

trophywench said:


> I don't think she's shown the ability to negotiate her way out of a bloody paper bag since she doesn't appear to have the imagination or talent to think about a problem in a different way


People seem to be under the illusion that TM herself will be sat at the negotiating table arguing our cause - she won't, because it is estimated that it will involve one full week out of every month for the next two years, and no PM can spare that amount of time away from domestic and other international duties. It will be Liam Fox and David Davies directing the whole thing and they are frighteningly overconfident of what they can achieve. TM has been people-dodging because she can't think on her feet. The EU has ALL the trained negotiators - we haven't needed them for 40+ years as the Eu have done everything for us with their specialists. TM knows it will end up badly, so she is taking this opportunity to give herself 5 years in power and squeeze whatever she can out of wider society to try and cover up the wreck the economy is going to become. 

One fundamental fact illustrates her delusional attitudes - the idea that you can get net migration down to <100k, when there are simply too many essential people and nowhere near the time to train indigenous replacements, not that that would be desirable anyway  There are currently 150k students for starters, does she intend to restrict the big money earners for the universities to 5 per institution? Immigration isn't the problem, it's the decimation of services and lack of housing that is the problem, but it seems the Tories have no real plans to address that, things will magically be solved when all the Poles and Romanians leave...   

Rant over! Well, for now


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## Pumper_Sue (May 19, 2017)

I love the idea not of her idea regard the stealing of family homes to pay for social care. There is going to have to be a lot and I mean a lot of will rewriting due to this madcap scheme.


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## Northerner (May 19, 2017)

Pumper_Sue said:


> I love the idea not of her idea regard the stealing of family homes to pay for social care. There is going to have to be a lot and I mean a lot of will rewriting due to this madcap scheme.


Unfortunately, I suspect that it will lead to a lot of people who really need the care not getting it because they do not want to deprive their children of their legacy, so it will increase suffering - but when did that ever bother the Tories? Also, another possibility is that people will get shunted off into care homes when they might have been cared for at home, because there will be no difference in care costs if the estate is taken into account in all cases. I'm sure there will be many people who will wonder what the point is of putting their own lives on hold to care for someone at home if it means losing their inheritance anyway


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## trophywench (May 20, 2017)

But all of this assumes rather that there will be care available in the first place.  There isn't NOW - hasn't been for years! - so from whence will it magically manifest in X years time when me or mine need it? 

With certain conditions - lots of establishments won't entertain taking a person - dementia where the sufferer has become violent for instance.  My ex father in law - he lived in Birmingham, however the hospital he attended - the nearest from his GP surgery - was in West Bromwich.  His only son continued to live in Worcestershire.  You would think that there was therefore plenty of scope to find somewhere suitable, in one or other of the three, wouldn't you?  Nope!  They spent months and months trying to find anywhere and eventually - the Old Boys Network found somewhere - son's second wife  was secretary to the Chief Constable of one of those 3 places and he could see her heading for a nervous breakdown from the stress of looking out for Albert and told her he'd see if he could help.  Phew.

Most of us don't have anyone on high on our side, so tough.

Anyway here's me assuming that anyone wants me to vote for them.  If they do - I don't know their names yet or which party they represent.  Is there a time limit to tell people who the candidates are?  (I strongly decline to try and find out who they are - that is NOT my job !)

And I really do have a problem.  Whilst I dislike the policies and people who paint themselves woad coloured and are currently in power and do like the policies of the red ones, do they seriously believe anyone with more than one brain cell could possibly vote for a party that contains Diane Abbott in a high role?  It tells me that they can't have anyone more capable than her - hence it's difficult for me to see how the party could man all the positions required to Govern.

I HATE not feeling I want to vote for anyone at all - makes me feel mega guilty - cos I think of Emmeline and Christabel bloody spinning in their graves!


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