This year the elderly have taken rather many setbacks in terms of services being offered. As reported earlier in the year, government is pushing elderly patients through hospitals and releasing them before they are truly ready. Now the Chancellor hinted that in his White Paper to be released, a new system will be launched to care for the disabled and elderly.
Although health experts and charities state that home help services and health care facilities are in need of major reforms, there is much controversy over the Chancellor’s changes which were hinted at during his annual Budget. At the heart of the reform seems to be some amount of concern by advisers that the elderly are being forced to sell their homes.
According to Andrew Dilnot, a government adviser, there is a way to care for the elderly without forcing them to sell their homes. Under the plan proposed by Dilnot, the lifetime maximum for anyone to pay during a lifetime for their care would be £35k. Any costs above and beyond this amount would be picked up by government so that pensioners would no longer be in jeopardy of losing their homes. To date, thousands have been forced each year to sell their homes.
One point that is being made is that under Dilnot’s plan, accommodation and food will not be cover. Conversely, Treasury is reluctant to fund the £1.7 billion which would be needed annually to provide these changes. Then, there are those who believe that all but the poorest of people receiving pensions should be made to cover the full cost of care.
The Chancellor hinted that younger generations should not be forced to cover the cost of caring for the elderly, but what many people are angry about is the fact that government benefited by taxes paid in by those pensioners for a great many years. Younger generations are not technically paying the cost – government should have invested more intelligently with the taxes paid over the past decades.
In the end, it is government’s lack of foresight causing the lack of funds and government forcing younger workers to pay the price. This is according to analysts who have been following the pension crisis over the years. These critics believe that blame should be laid upon the doorstep where it belongs – mismanagement by government, not illness of the elderly.
