Despite the baby boomers ageing, we can afford to care
This generation is going to be expensive. But a voluntary, late-in-life or after-death payment scheme ticks every box
Polly Toynbee
The Guardian,
Tuesday May 13 2008
Every year that passes, the crisis in social care threatens to crash into the political headlines. It hasn't quite yet, but the desperate state of the old and their carers is a gathering thundercloud. Gordon Brown yesterday began a public consultation, saying care was "at the heart of our ambition for a fairer Britain". Indeed, it raises deep equality questions. It's the right subject at the right time, as each party's manifesto will offer a remedy that reflects their true political nature.
Every day there are scandals hidden away in private: the old man struggling alone to wash, feed and dress his wife who has Alzheimer's, the mother in her 70s caring for her 50-year-old disabled son, the old woman sinking into degradation on her own while a council judges her needs insufficiently "critical". It's probably happening to someone in your street right now. Polls show most people blithely expect care to be there and to be free - but everyone discovers another truth when they need a care service. Then they find services vary wildly in a postcode lottery while the lottery of life decrees whether care costs eat up a family's last savings.
Reality started to bite once the all-powerful baby boomer generation began caring for its parents. By the time they need care, demands will explode. They, the have-it-all generation, always had it good (and that includes me). Sixty years ago, the new free NHS brought them into the world, as child benefits and the Butler education act were followed by new plate-glass universities to educate them. Their teenage years dominated the cultural scene - and oddly still do. They have the last good occupational pensions. Already, 85% of people between 54 and 70 own their homes as wealth is sucked up the age ladder, leaving the young struggling harder than they ever did. There are now more people over 65 than there are children - and they will live long. Look at this: the over-60s own £932bn in property, and the shortfall for care is just £6bn.
James Lloyd of the International Longevity Centre has produced an ingenious social insurance scheme the Department of Health is studying with enthusiasm. The joy of this scheme is that it is voluntary: payment only applies to the over-65s, when people really are thinking about care, and people can choose how they pay.
Abridged
FULL-TEXT FROM: GuardianUK
----------------------------------------------------
More Recent Posts from Spotlight on Elder Abuse
No comments:
Post a Comment