By Ben Kerrigan-
Over-40s may be forced to pay more in tax or national insurance, or insure themselves against exceedingly high bills for care when they are older. The money raised would then be used to pay for the help that frail elderly people need with washing, dressing and other activities if still at home, or to cover their stay in a care home.
The plans are being examined by Boris Johnson’s new health and social care taskforce, and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). They are gaining support as the government’s answer to the politically perilous question of who should pay for social care.
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Revealed in the UK Guardian, sources say the principle of over-40s meeting the cost of a reformed system of care for the ageing population is emerging as the government’s preferred option for fulfilling the prime minister’s pledge just over a year ago to “fix the crisis in social care once and for all”.
Health Secretary, Matt Hancock is leading discussions surrounding the government’s master plan to overhaul social care, with the funding system used in Japan and Germany to fund social care providing a potential template of a model .
In Japan everyone starts contributing once they reach 40. In Germany everyone pays something towards that cost from the time they start working, and pensioners contribute too. Currently 1.5% of every person’s salary, and a further 1.5% from employers or pension funds, are ringfenced to pay for care in later life.
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Older people in Germany who have had their needs assessed can use the money to pay carers to help them with personal tasks at home, or for care home fees or even to give to relatives and friends for helping to look after them.
Adopting a similar approach would let Johnson say he has ended the situation whereby some pensioners deemed too wealthy to qualify for local council-funded care have to sell their homes to pay care home costs, which can exceed £1,400 a week.
One source with knowledge of the government’s deliberations said: “The latest thinking is that there’s a preference for some sort of Japanese-style model where once you are over 40 you start paying into a central risk pool. They are deadly serious about that.”
Officials are looking into the exact mechanism by which over-40s would pay – whether through a payroll tax or insurance. But social care experts cautioned that any insurance model would have to be compulsory to ensure people paid.
Introducing a comprehensive and reliable system like that in Germany and Japan would “arguably [be] an appropriate act of national atonement after the catastrophic loss of life we’ve seen in care homes during the pandemic”.
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