Thursday, December 19, 2013

Obamacare Coming Attractions? 4 out of 10 elderly needing care in Britain are shut out of System

Almost 40 per cent of elderly people who would have qualified for care in recent years now excluded after social workers ordered to apply tougher eligibility tests unofficially, report concludes 
More than 450,000 frail elderly and disabled people who would until recently have received state-funded care have been shut of the system because of pressure to cut numbers, a stark new report concludes.
The academic study, published as MPs prepare to debate the Government’s long-awaited overhaul of care, found that almost 40 per cent of those who would have had some help with basic tasks such as washing and dressing less than a decade ago are now left to fend for themselves. 
It comes as an alliance of 75 charities warned that the Government’s good intentions in overhauling the system risk being completely undermined by a “black hole” in funding for social care.
The report, by researchers at the London School of Economics, describes cuts in the last two years alone as “without precedent in the history of adult social care”. 
It warns that the care system is now caught in a “vicious circle” with fewer and fewer people receiving help at home but more and more likely to have to turn to the NHS – something which could ultimately cost the taxpayer more.
Significantly, it found that the sheer speed at which people have been excluded from the social care system outstrips the rate at which rules about who qualifies for care have been tightened up. 
The only explanation for that, the report suggests, is that social workers who assess people to decide whether they are frail enough to need care are under pressure to operate an extra “implicit criteria” – meaning that they are being told to apply an even more strict interpretation than the rules might suggest on paper.
Read the rest of the story HERE.

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6 comments:

RomneyMan said...

And over there, a massive one (that many don't find out until it's too late) is that if a older person goes into a care home, and they own their home, when they die the gov't claim back the care costs via selling the deceased's house. This means that the house would not be handed down via inheritance to the deceased's offspring. The gov't can take everything you once owned, doen to about 20,000$ (you're personal cap that they won't dig any deeper into). This isn't much when you cosider a house is say worth 200,000 $.
Same deal if instead of going into a care home, the have care worker visiting a few times a week.
Over there, HOSPITAL stuff is 'free' (in general), but care outside hospital due to old age (where an older person literally can't look after themselves), isn't, unless the person wasn't a home owner, with no substantial savings etc, or if their partner is still alive and living in the home of course.
Many of the deceased's children don't know this stuff until it's too late, when instead of attaining the home their mom or dad worked hard for, they often get peanuts.

Anonymous said...

Maybe RM has been possessed by aliens! I think this is the first comment I remember reading from him where he actually criticized some form of gov't healthcare. It's almost too much to take in!

Gov't taking people's homes after they die is another example of where the Harry Reid/Nancy Pelosi/Barack Obama healthcare plan is headed. Stupid, foolish Americans.

AZ

BOSMAN said...

After working hard all their lives, All these seniors seem to be getting in Britain when it comes to their Health concerns is the cold shoulder.

DON'T KID YOURSELF...If Obamacare is not REPEALED...This is YOUR PARENTS, AUNTS, UNCLES, FRIENDS....and eventually..YOU!

TELL ME I'M WRONG...RomneyMan...AND WHY.

RomneyMan said...

Yes, in the UK (and other euro places, nort Scotland though, even thoug part of the UK), social care- not hospital stuff, but old peopes' homes etc is not free, unless you've pretty much been a benefit head. If you're not, once you die, it must be paid for somehow, usually by way of selling the house, which essentially is the gov't taking your own home, which is horrendous when it's all said and done. If the person's got savings, that can be used as ongoing care payments, but like I said they will take everything down to your last $20,000.
I looked up some articles on it, and, as I said, the amout of siblings that get caught out once their parent(s) die is astonishing. The care homes are supposed to be terrible too. Looks like over there, if you've got to go into a care home and have just about got some marbles left in your head, you might as well take a self aimed bullet to yourself, instead of having everything you've worked to pass on to your offspring ripped away from you.

With ObamaCare, there is no need for conversation.

Ohio JOE said...

Ah, but we were told there were no death panels.

Anonymous said...

I'm just glad my mom had her heart surgery LAST YEAR, before ObamaCare kicked in. She would not have been able to choose her doc or hospital. She went out of state for top care. And now, she's alive and well.

-Martha