This week the Tory lead government announced plans to cap the cost of care for the elderly at £75,000. Jeremy Hunt, Conservative Health Secretary announced the cap along with plans to increase the means testing threshold to £123,000 claiming it would benefit 100,000 people.
The fact is, the majority of people who have to go into care homes only live on average for around five years. This means they will never reach the £75k and still have to pay the fees themselves.
This is quite simply a policy to save well off pensioners having to sell their expensive homes to pay for care, protecting the inheritance of their families. It does nothing to improve the standard of care and does little for the people who are actually receiving the care.
Hunt says people will be able to take insurance policies to cover the cost up to the point of the cap but many people currently planning for old age can barely afford to eat and pay their heating bills let alone pay insurance policies just in case they need care later.
The few people who will benefit do not know they will benefit because of the very nature of the care, so are unlikely to take out the insurance.
It is a shame when elderly people are forced to go into care homes because they are no longer able to look after themselves. It is a greater shame when they are forced to sell their children's inheritance to pay for the care. It is a tragedy that we care more about the inheritance than we care about the standard of care, the elderly receive in these homes.
Many elderly people who can still look after themselves face loneliness and poverty. They get little help other than a free TV licence and a bus pass. Often, many of them are afraid to leave their home- worried that they might be attacked or they might fall. Many of them will go days without seeing another human being. In an increasingly digital age, they find them selves isolated and lost, unable to keep up with modern life. They sit in solitude afraid to turn up the heating-instead wearing coats indoors to combat the cold suffering from ill health or fading mental health, too proud to ask for help.
They shouldn't need to ask.
If, God forbid, either of my parents had to go into a care home because they were too ill to look after themselves, my first thought would be that i hope they are cared for in there. Priority would be the well being of the patient. I would not be worrying that my birth right was going to taken away.
I'm not saying all nursing homes are badly run nor am i saying that they all neglect their patients but it has been well documented that many elderly people in care suffer abuse and neglect as cost cutting leads to corner cutting.
Instead of safeguarding the inheritance rights of the wealthy, the government and Mr Hunt need to look at ways to improve the care and ensure a quality of life and dignity is maintained for elderly people of all classes and pay brackets.
Why should the rich be entitled to keep the family home while less well off tax payers pay for the care? Surely in a fair society, those who can afford to pay for their care, even if they have to sell assets, should.
 Like wise, those who cannot afford to pay for their care should still be afforded the same respect and we as a society have a responsibility to provide it.
Schemes like direct payment should be expanded to ensure every single old person is able to access care whether it be at home with help from personal assistants  or in a nursing home.
We are constantly told that we have an ageing population and that we are living longer and longer. Money needs to be ploughed in now to guarantee that those needing care can access care.  Investment is needed in ways to support the elderly at home. Local authority care homes are needed that cater for people who have no assets, and private care homes that charge extortionate rates should be rigorously controlled to ensure they provide a service for all.
In a world where people with disabled partners or children fighting wars to protect our country are punished for having an extra bedroom, it is ludicrously hypocritical to spend money protecting well off families inheritance.





elerly care , inheritance , Jeremy Hunt

                        If you can, you should!

The world financial crisis has left Britain skint, unemployed and suffering. High rates of unemployment, lack of money from the banks, low demand, increased debt and no growth has seen the master plan of George Osbourne proven to be failing again and again. When forming the government the two parties claimed they were coming together, in the national interest and the priority was the economy. Almost every measure the Con-Dem's have taken has punished the poor. Though they said we were all in it together, and it only fair that we all share the burden, the bulk of the cuts they have introduced will hit the poorest the hardest. Cuts to local governments have meant cuts in services, many of which are vital to the poorest and most vulnerable in society.  While protecting the grey vote- effectively refusing to even consider taking away free bus passes and heating allowances from well off pensioners, some of whom don't even live in this country,-social services, the police, the NHS and schools have all seen their budgets squeezed to breaking point. The bloody minded stubbornness and refusal to change strategy has seen the very debt the Government promised to reduce actually increase.
 The triple dip recession has meant redundancies have added to unemployment queues. The insistence that we all must work longer, extending the retirement age will inevitably mean that there are less jobs for the young.  The increase in tuition fees has led to a considerable drop in young people enrolling at university. So just what is the government going to do about the long term unemployed young. Many Tory MP's have stated that the savage cuts are necessary to avoid our children paying for our debts. The fact is that the next generation faces a future where the norm is never to have had a job. There is a real danger that the poverty and boredom faced by these people will leave many unable to cope with adult life and many will suffer from depression and other mental health issues.  Instead of dealing with these issues, the government have carried on regardless, announcing cut after cut.
The opposition, has apposed every idea the millionaires row that is the cabinet has come up with. Miliband is not in favour of capping benefits, not in favour of bedroom tax not in favour of anything, including offering an alternative. With less than two years until the campaign for power begins, the public deserves to know what is on offer yet Labour refuse to confirm one single cut they will reverse if they successfully regain the keys to Downing Street.
This year almost £210 billion will be spent on benefits. This is undoubtedly unsustainable, that is under today's model.
Osbourn wants to tar everyone with the same brush, accusing everyone on benefits as shirker's and scroungers.
There is clearly a big difference in someone working 40 hours a week to keep a roof over his families head, claiming benefits to top up his low wage and career job dodgers- never worked and never want to work.
Today in a land mark ruling judges decided that the Tories back to work scheme was unlawful.
The plan was, people who are claiming job seekers allowance, should be forced to work, for their benefits.
A student and an unemployed former HGV driver had their claim upheld by an appeal judge that the governments flagship back to work plan was legally flawed. 
The 24 year old student who worked as a volunteer in a museum had to give up her role to take up a placement in Poundland, under a scheme called the sector based work academy.
The 40 year old unemployed man was told his JSA could be stopped if he refused to take part in a community action programme. His lawyers claimed this could have meant him working 30 hours unpaid.
Now, while i think that if companies like Pundland and Tesco can find free work for thousands of people while maintaining massive profits, then they can surely justify employing more people and paying them an actual wage - that said why on earth should some one be allowed to sit on their backsides all day and collect benefits when are they are quite capable of working?
No one has the right to simply live as a leech- sucking life out of society while putting nothing back in.
Instead of promoting free labour for wealthy corporations, it is fair for the government to say if you are able to work, you should expect to do something in return for your money.
The cuts to essential services mean thousands of old age pensioners surviving on just state hand outs are left vulnerable and lonely, many of them not seeing another person for several days at a time. Obviously the more vulnerable need protection but why is unacceptable to make unemployed  men  and women visit some of these people in their homes for a few hours a week. Even some disabled people could mange that. This would be useful in helping many disabled people to feel valued and worthy.
 For the lonely, elderly, unstable and  infirm this could be priceless. It wouldn't lower the benefits bill but people wont mind a huge benefits budget if the recipients are giving something back.
The squeezed budgets of local councils will mean services such as removing graffiti and cutting grass verges and other green areas will undoubtedly suffer.  Young healthy  out of work people should be expected to do those sort of jobs for a few hours a week. For many young people who have never had the responsibility of a job, the experience and learning of a work ethic would irrefutably benefit them when they are finally able to get paid jobs.  Many bright former students who have good qualifications but are unable to find paid work could help in local schools as classroom assistant or mentors to young people easing the burden on the education bill.
It will need a brave government to introduce such proposals and it would need a responsible opposition to accept them.
Along with proper apprenticeships and training programmes, business could be encouraged to employ the young by reducing minimum wage and no national insurance contributions for those  under 22 years old ( after all, they will now be working 10 years longer than previous generations).                 
These are the only measures that can truly be called fare.
Hard labour for free giving rich businesses more profits is clearly not fair but for those that can then surely they should put something back into society in kind.