A National Care Fund to pay for older people’s long-term care?
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008The issue of how to fund older people’s long-term care is one of the trickiest problems confronting policymakers. The only agreement is that reform is needed, and that demand for care will increase in coming decades. Models of state-funded universal free care for older people have usually dominated debate.
However, after a decade of rising property prices, which has created by far the wealthiest older cohort in history, forcing younger taxpayers to fund universal free care now seems like a strikingly unfair proposal.
As an alternative, a National Care Fund would also achieve universal coverage and social minimums of provision, but limit the risk-pool for long-term care to older people only. Auto-enrolment would achieve higher levels of insurance provision than the private sector on its own could achieve. Within this framework, there any many details that would need to be addressed, not least how much individuals would have to pay to be enrolled in a National Care Fund. The ILC-UK is keen for feedback on this model from all stakeholders, and would welcome comments, which can be posted here by clicking on the above title and writing in the box that appears at the bottom of the page.
James Lloyd