*UNDER CONSTRUCTION* Signal-boosting #ToryBritain truths to the nation. Helping YOU be part of the fightback.
From The Independent: Thousands of old and disabled people are at risk of losing vital support because long-term funding for adult social care has been neglected by successive governments, care chiefs have warned.
From The Independent: Senior Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, the chair of Commons Health and Social Care Committee, has condemned plans for a new “care Isa” to fund end of life treatment, arguing that it would only work for a “small minority of wealthy people” who can afford to invest.
From Daily Telegraph: Home-owning pensioners would be forced to pay up to £30,000 each as part of a radical plan to solve Britain’s care funding crisis under proposals being promoted by a former government minister.
[Read full article on Telegraph website…] [paywalled, but free registration allows access to one article per week]
From Daily Mirror: A heckler on the Tory benches in the House of Commons made what Labour MPs described as an “ageist” and “inappropriate” joke while Mr Corbyn complained older people “aren’t receiving the care they need”.
From Daily Mirror: Tory NHS and social care cuts are “economic murder” and already 120,000 Brits have died needlessly since 2010, claim researchers at three top universities.
From The Independent: A Conservative minister has been accused of resurrecting the so-called “dementia tax”, claiming that taxpayers should not be “propping up” people to keep their own homes while they were generating significant social care costs.
From Daily Mirror: The Conservative Party’s manifesto plan to reform social care funding provoked a huge backlash, and has been dubbed the “dementia tax”. So why is it controversial, how will it work, and what will it mean for your family?
This video footage from a Theresa May press conference has been viewed over 3 million times on Facebook.
Theresa May destroyed over dementia tax
Posted by The Independent on Monday, May 22, 2017
From Financial Times: Theresa May is facing a growing Conservative backlash against her plans to reform funding for social care, with critics claiming she is introducing a “dementia tax” that could amount to a 100 per cent inheritance tax rate for core Tory voters.
[Read full article on Financial Times website…] (paywall, but free registration allows access to one article per month)
Blog article from Another Angry Voice: “The Tory Dementia Tax is surely one of the nastiest and most ill-conceived pieces of legislation to ever appear in a General Election manifesto.
“It just goes to show how arrogant and out of touch the Tory party are that they thought they could get away with announcing such a malicious scheme to asset strip elderly people for the ‘crime’ of developing dementia or serious physical disabilities in their old age after lifetimes of paying National Insurance and Council Tax to cover the cost of things like the NHS and social care.
“Setting the bar at £100,000 when the average property price in the UK is £215,000 is clearly a way of harvesting the wealth of middle income families.
“The poor won’t have to pay it because they won’t own their own homes. The very wealthy won’t have to pay it because they can pay for private care in their old age. So it’s just the middle who get asset stripped. The people who worked hard and saved to buy their own properties are the low-hanging fruit the Tories have identified. They’re the target this time.
“Dementia Tax is clearly an inheritance tax specifically to extract the wealth of middle income families as they get ill in their old age, so that the Tories can continue lavishing tax breaks on the super-rich and their corporate chums (like the £70 billion that the ongoing Tory corporation tax cuts are going to cost by 2020).
“Dementia Tax is a clear and demonstrable attack on the Tory party’s own core support.”
From The Guardian: More elderly people will have to pay for their own social care in the home and lose universal benefits under a new Conservative policy which, Theresa May will say, is difficult but necessary to tackle the crisis in funding.
Introducing the party’s election manifesto, the prime minister will say it is the “responsibility of leaders to be straight with people about the challenges ahead” as she unveils a controversial policy that would reduce the value of estates that many people hope to pass on to their children.
The policy will be a flagship measure in the Tories’ election manifesto, which the prime minister will pitch as a programme for solving some of the challenges facing Britain. It means wealthier people with more than £100,000 in assets will have to pay for their own elderly care out of the value of their homes, rather than relying on the council to cover the costs of visits by care workers.
Mark Brown writes in the Guardian: 37 NHS clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in England are introducing rules about ongoing care that could force up to 13,000 people with health conditions into care homes. The CCGs will essentially begin saying to people with disabilities and long-term health needs: if you haven’t got the cash for homecare, then it’s off to a care home for you.
Imagine you have been living in your home for years. It might be where your kids were born. Being at home, having your stuff around you, having the greatest possible measure of independence, obviously means a lot to everyone, whether you’re well, ill or disabled. Then one day someone comes and tells you, “Nope, you’re too expensive here. We’re moving you to a care home unless you cough up the money to pay for what you need.