Social Care - Increase Tax Or Not.

[Rollypolly 51]

48 minutes ago, Victor Meldrew said:

Exactly right Anna. Well said!

 

My dad developed the dreaded disease and ended up in a care home after he'd been discharged from hospital. He was never 'wealthy' but because he'd put some savings aside for his old age he ended up paying the entire £1200 per week for what was very basic care. And that's after paying his NI for the whole of his working life. Many of us will be in the same boat when you factor in the value of all assets such as houses. And all, as Anna says, to line the pockets of the already wealthy company chiefs of the private 'care' providers.

I agree entirely. My dad worked hard to by his house and after he died mum got dementia. We did everything possible to look after her and keep her in her own home but eventually it was taken out of our hands and she had to go into a care home. The cost was over £1000 a week. If she didn't own her house we would have at least have had some financial help. The whole system seems very unfair.

Edited September 7, 2021 by Rollypolly

[FIRETHORN1 58]

We have an ever-growing population in which people are living longer - or at least being kept alive for longer. The need for more and more social care will only increase in future. In principle, I agree that taxes need to be increased to cater for this ever growing need, but under the current system, any extra tax revenue raised would only go to line the pockets of greedy private sector contractors or would be frittered away by understaffed, inefficient, badly managed Local Councils.

 

These days, when people who need additional care - either in a residential  Care Home or in their own homes - after being discharged from hospital or becoming too infirm to look after themselves - they are just dumped on local Councils' Social Services departments. The local councils can't cope, so the people are pushed into privately run Care Homes or contracted out to privately run  Care-in-your-own- home  companies. The private companies are paid huge sums of public money  but because they are only interested in profit, they are usually understaffed, with poorly paid, poorly trained people who give an inadequate service to their clients.

 

My own view is that all social care should be provided by the Government, none of it should be hived off to the Private Sector and no-one should have to sell their home or spend their life savings to get the care they need when they are too old or too ill/disabled to look after themselves. I think the Government should set up and entirely new department - The National Social Care Service. This new service should be publicly funded and should have sole responsibility for the provision & management of all social care in  residential  Care Homes and for giving people care in their own homes.  When a hospital or GP feels a patient needs social care, they would refer them to this National Social Care Service - who would recruit and train their own staff, pay them decent wages and give them decent working conditions. The new service would also be responsible for ensuring that people being cared for in their own homes are given all the equipment and home-adaptations they need to help keep them as independent as possible - like providing wheelchairs, beds etc, or installing wheelchair ramps, upgrading bathrooms & kitchens

 

I know my idea sounds utopian and is unlikely to ever happen, but I think the only way to improve existing dire social care is not just to raise taxes and throw more money into a system that already isn't working. The provision of social care needs root-and-branch reform and a whole new way of delivering it. By all means, raise more money by increasing taxes - but the extra money needs to be spent more wisely too.

 

[El Cid 210]

2 hours ago, West 77 said:

The world has changed since the 2019 Tory election manifesto.  The change in circumstances justifies an increase in National Insurance contributions.

Johnson had a plan for social care in 2019, no increase in tax was mentioned. There will be fewer 80+ year olds, since Johnson allowed the COVID virus to reach herd immunity. So an NI increase is not related to social care.

 

Yes there is now a massive debt, which should be associated with 'eat out to help out', bussiness support grants and the NHS.

[El Cid 210]

Just now, West 77 said:

The pandemic was an unforeseen and unexpected event no political party budgeted for.  It's blatantly obvious any sensible government will introduce tax increases such as increasing national insurance contributions sooner or later. 

It was rather stupid of them to announce the tax increase at the same time as social care reform. The extra tax revenue isnt to pay for social car reform, since that was already in the pipeline.

[iansheff 84]

12 minutes ago, West 77 said:

Tax increases have to be announced sometime. It's really irrelevant in the grand scheme of things whether the increased revenue  from National Insurance contributions will fund social care.  The government have a massive budget deficit because they have borrowed masses amount of money to fund unforeseen  pandemic expenditure.  Tax increases and cuts in government expenditure are the only tools any government have at their disposal to reduce government spending and borrowing.

Yet they can waste tax payers money on things like HS2 and a new Royal yacht, Governments are inept when it comes to contracts, has a Government contract ever come in on budget? The two aircraft carriers have cost over double the initial estimate. The other day on the news they were at Big Ben, the initial cost we were told would be £20m for repairs and what a surprise it had more than quadrupled to £90m.

Edited September 7, 2021 by iansheff

[The Joker 10]

1 hour ago, El Cid said:

Johnson had a plan for social care in 2019, no increase in tax was mentioned.

If it wasn't posted on the side of a big red bus, then it didn't happen.

[the_bloke 17]

It'll go up each year once it gets split from NI; for all those that want more money for the NHS, well now you have your wish. The issue with the NHS and social care in general is that no matter how much money is pumped into it, it'll always need more. It's a sticking plaster.

 

Watch this space in 2024 - 'NHS needs more money' will be the headline in the Guardian, and there will be no explanations as to how it all got spent and where it went.

[iansheff 84]

58 minutes ago, West 77 said:

Have a day off from being an anti-Tory point scoring loser.  Let's not forget when the Labour party left office some loser employed by Gordon Brown at the treasury left a little note saying "I'm afraid there is no money left"   

Well you are a nice person aren't you throwing the insults out calling people losers, you know nothing about me, grow up. Don't bother replying cos I have put you on ignore.

[ECCOnoob 1,016]

33 minutes ago, the_bloke said:

It'll go up each year once it gets split from NI; for all those that want more money for the NHS, well now you have your wish. The issue with the NHS and social care in general is that no matter how much money is pumped into it, it'll always need more. It's a sticking plaster.

 

Watch this space in 2024 - 'NHS needs more money' will be the headline in the Guardian, and there will be no explanations as to how it all got spent and where it went.

That I certainly would agree with.

 

Bottomless pit is an understatement.  I always find it quite interesting to do a quick google search of the words NHS crisis or NHS funding or or NHS pay strike or NHS privatisation threat or NHS brink of collapse....just to see how far back in time and how often we see the same regurgitated headlines, the same staged sad face photos from doctors and nurses, the same overdramatic narrative wording, the same hot air from talking head politicians and the same vox pops from morons in the street squawking ridiculous childish solutions like "tax the rich"

 

Boy Who Cried Wolf syndrome.

 

The whole organisation is massively overblown, overused, abused, mismanaged and quite frankly overprotected.   Its needs an overhaul from top to bottom.  A complete clear out of dead wood personnel, a tightening and penalisation of patients who deliberately or neglectful  abuse their free healthcare privileges, a complete rollback of any ridiculous expensive partnership quangos or auxiliary services and stripping completely back to its original purpose of providing basic essential healthcare provisions.  

 

But of course,  God help any government even attempting to hypothesise such ideas. They would be shouted down and burried before the words could even get out their mouths.

Edited September 7, 2021 by ECCOnoob

[tinfoilhat 11]

34 minutes ago, ECCOnoob said:

That I certainly would agree with.

 

Bottomless pit is an understatement.  I always find it quite interesting to do a quick google search of the words NHS crisis or NHS funding or or NHS pay strike or NHS privatisation threat or NHS brink of collapse....just to see how far back in time and how often we see the same regurgitated headlines, the same staged sad face photos from doctors and nurses, the same overdramatic narrative wording, the same hot air from talking head politicians and the same vox pops from morons in the street squawking ridiculous childish solutions like "tax the rich"

 

Boy Who Cried Wolf syndrome.

 

The whole organisation is massively overblown, overused, abused, mismanaged and quite frankly overprotected.   Its needs an overhaul from top to bottom.  A complete clear out of dead wood personnel, a tightening and penalisation of patients who deliberately or neglectful  abuse their free healthcare privileges, a complete rollback of any ridiculous expensive partnership quangos or auxiliary services and stripping completely back to its original purpose of providing basic essential healthcare provisions.  

 

But of course,  God help any government even attempting to hypothesise such ideas. They would be shouted down and burried before the words could even get out their mouths.

Well he isn't taxing the rich, he's taxing everyone else. Not to say things can't be improved - I bet if you ask quite a few health professionals they'd give a few ideas.

 

Basic essential healthcare provision is an odd turn of phrase though. What wouldn't you offer?

[harvey19 541]

It appears to me that social care will be limited to £86K but accommodation will be extra.

So if a person has to go in a care home they will still have to pay for accommodation on top of the £86K.

Or have I misunderstood ?

[Anna B 1,401]

2 hours ago, FIRETHORN1 said:

We have an ever-growing population in which people are living longer - or at least being kept alive for longer. The need for more and more social care will only increase in future. In principle, I agree that taxes need to be increased to cater for this ever growing need, but under the current system, any extra tax revenue raised would only go to line the pockets of greedy private sector contractors or would be frittered away by understaffed, inefficient, badly managed Local Councils.

 

These days, when people who need additional care - either in a residential  Care Home or in their own homes - after being discharged from hospital or becoming too infirm to look after themselves - they are just dumped on local Councils' Social Services departments. The local councils can't cope, so the people are pushed into privately run Care Homes or contracted out to privately run  Care-in-your-own- home  companies. The private companies are paid huge sums of public money  but because they are only interested in profit, they are usually understaffed, with poorly paid, poorly trained people who give an inadequate service to their clients.

 

My own view is that all social care should be provided by the Government, none of it should be hived off to the Private Sector and no-one should have to sell their home or spend their life savings to get the care they need when they are too old or too ill/disabled to look after themselves. I think the Government should set up and entirely new department - The National Social Care Service. This new service should be publicly funded and should have sole responsibility for the provision & management of all social care in  residential  Care Homes and for giving people care in their own homes.  When a hospital or GP feels a patient needs social care, they would refer them to this National Social Care Service - who would recruit and train their own staff, pay them decent wages and give them decent working conditions. The new service would also be responsible for ensuring that people being cared for in their own homes are given all the equipment and home-adaptations they need to help keep them as independent as possible - like providing wheelchairs, beds etc, or installing wheelchair ramps, upgrading bathrooms & kitchens

 

I know my idea sounds utopian and is unlikely to ever happen, but I think the only way to improve existing dire social care is not just to raise taxes and throw more money into a system that already isn't working. The provision of social care needs root-and-branch reform and a whole new way of delivering it. By all means, raise more money by increasing taxes - but the extra money needs to be spent more wisely too.

 

Far from being Utopian, that is pretty much how it used to work before Thatcher and her 'Free market economics' which required everything to be privatised and profit driven, even services where service was the bottom line and no obvious profit was forthcoming. 

There was a two tier system, where some people who could afford it went private in NHS hospitals avoiding waiting lists, but the money gained was fed back into the NHS for the benefit of all patients, so it worked well for everybody.