The NHS: well-off pensioners should pay a social care insurance | the big issue

In searching for a new tax to save the NHS and social care from collapse consideration should be given to a section of the populace that has so far been “featherbedded” by recent governments – retired pensioners who are comfortably well off (“UK needs new tax to save NHS and social care from collapse – top Tory”, News).

This group will probably have occupational and state pensions and possibly other income – state pensions have been increased by 2.5% each year for most of the last few years. Like most other pensioners they will also probably receive fuel allowances, free TV licences, bus passes, free medical prescriptions and eye tests and of course once retired they no longer pay national insurance. But they are becoming a greater burden on NHS and social care resources and I think it could certainly be fully justified if they were to pay a small percentage of national insurance tax, gradually increasing for higher incomes.

I am in my late 80s and would willingly pay a small percentage amount of national insurance, as long as I knew it would definitely be going into a separate NHS fund, not into general revenue. In fact, many other taxpayers would probably be willing to pay an extra amount of tax as long as they knew it was going into a separate NHS and social care fund.
John Hartley
Kirkby Lonsdale

Your front page story further reinforces the politically convenient narrative that the only problem facing the NHS is the increasing number of elderly people. As a late baby boomer I am fed up being regarded as a likely drain on the healthcare system.

Abysmal lifestyle habits, including excessive alcohol consumption and sugar- and fat-rich diets, contribute more to the cost of the NHS than geriatrics.

It’s a lazy and shabby argument to frame the NHS budget crisis principally around a demographic trend that is essentially a positive.

We can improve our personal health by taking responsibility for our lifestyle and we can stop clogging up A&E departments by being more sensible about what constitutes an emergency: we can’t actually stop getting old.
John Wilson
Magheralin
Craigavon

Twenty years ago, I spent a fortnight in the small German town of Weinheim, near Heidelberg, shadowing a German social worker. As a social worker myself I was keen to see how another EU country endeavoured to finance the needs of the frail elderly.

Dr Dan Poulter maintains that the British government needs to introduce a health and care tax as a matter of urgency. When I spent those two weeks in Germany, a new, strictly ringfenced tax had already been operating for a couple of years.

Known as the Pflegekasse (care insurance ), into which all age groups have to pay, it involves three levels of need, ranging from those who are still partly independent, but who need some assistance with personal care, to those who require several daily visits from care assistants, and also to those frail elderly or disabled of any age whose needs can only be met by admission to a care home.

This system, and the way it is paid for, speeds up discharge from hospital and helps to prevent many from being admitted to hospital in the first place. Twenty years on, the system is functioning well.

Why has a similar arrangement never been established in this country? I fear that now we have opted to leave the EU there is even less chance of a British government emulating a good, workable idea that has taken root in an EU country. After all, Britain always knows best, doesn’t it?
Alison Thompson
Thursby
Cumbria

The NHS: well-off pensioners should pay a social care insurance | the big issue