Controversial proposals to cap costs of long-term care at £35,000 to £50,000 are due to be announced tomorrow.
Andrew Dilnot, head of the commission on funding care and support, is believed to favour the suggestion by the Centre for Policy Studies that such costs be capped, with the taxpayer picking up any additional expenditure.
It is thought such a move would reduce uncertainty about the future for people trying to plan for their retirements and would enable insurance companies to provide products designed to cover the capped amount.
However, criticisms of the proposals include that they are based on irrelevant data and the capped amount will not include residential costs of care homes — only the nursing care needed, whether it is in your own home or in a care home — meaning a significant element of uncertainty about future costs would remain.
While statistics show the average person entering a care home lives for only two more years, and costs £30,000 a year, this includes those who are fully reliant on the state. Self-funders (those with assets of more than £23,000 including the value of their homes) live for four years on average, and in care homes costing an average £55,000 a year. They make up 40% of care home residents, and 25% run out of money and fall back on the state.
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The Dilnot proposals are likely to spark a great deal of debate. An in-depth survey of people aged 18 to 65, conducted by GfK Financial, the polling group, on behalf of Partnerhip, a long-term care funding specialist, found that those in favour of taxpayers footing the bill for long-term care falls dramatically from about 45% to just 26% in some sectors of society once people are given the full facts about how much long-term care costs.
Those most opposed are the wealthy (classes A and B), of whom 74% said they thought the individual should be wholly responsible.
Younger generations say they have more pressing things to worry about, such as making ends meet (34%), job security (30%), their own pension provision (26%), affording a car (24%), the cost of university education for their children (20%), paying the mortgage (16%) and affording a home (10%). About 6% are already coping with the cost of care for an elderly relative.
Chris Horlick at Partnership said: “When the young understand they will have to shoulder the care funding burden of the elderly, who have enjoyed many financial benefits that they will not, there is an understandable shift in thinking.”