Aren't politicians lovely. Labour dump a huge financial mess on all of us and then pick on pieces as if the current government are to blame. In a sense of course they are, but that is for failing to come up with a real plan to deal with the mess, they are not to blame for the mess and certainly not for increases in social care charges. Such increases are inevitable in a system funded from current day tax receipts when receipts fall or life lengthens. At the moment we have the perfect storm of both of those occuring simultaneously, alongside a huge bulge in the number of people turning 65.
The success of the NHS and better standards of living in keeping people alive longer is the problem. Longer lives mean more social care, more NHS care and more pensions. This triple whammy means that my fag packet jottings tell me that for every additional person living from 85 to 95 we need to find an extra £300,000 just for those 10 years of life. At some point in the next few years there will be a further 1 million of them, meaning an additional £300bn in tax or charges needs to come from somewhere on top of the current deficit.
In sense, then Labour are right. The charges for social care are a tax, and they arise from the doomed attempt to fund our health, pensions and social care from current day taxation. This simply must stop, it is barely affordable today and as I have just shown it will get worse at speed.
The Unofficial Big Society Green Paper argues for an entirely new system with a clean break from the past. It suggests complete honesty and transparency with all of us about what we put in and what we will get out. If you are worried that we are leaving our children an impossible situation, you are right. It is time for bold and decisive action, not another pile of debris pushed quietly under the carpet. That bulge in the carpet is already quite large and without real strategic action at some point in the next 10 years Britannia is going to trip over the carpet and find that she has sustained injuries from which there will be no recovery.
Please act now.
Gareth
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