Britain descends further and further into absolute Socialism and welfare statism. Sad but predictable.
Via The Guardian:
Like most of the British public, I disliked the Conservatives’ “dementia tax” proposal during the election campaign. When you make someone’s access to social care dependent on giving up the money they intend to pass on to descendants, you risk encouraging them to struggle on without seeking the help they need. While you’d hope most people would prioritise the wellbeing of elderly family members over cold hard cash, it seems inevitable that some might delay organising support for relatives to avoid depleting their future wealth.
There are strong, practical reasons for making essential public services free at the point of access – even when means testing would theoretically ensure only people who can afford it are required to pay directly. It’s impossible to fully understand the value of universality if your only assessment criteria is redistributive efficiency.
Politics is a funny business, though, and the inevitable reduction of every complex issue into a simple binary conflict (or, very occasionally, a three-way tussle) means you can often find yourself in possession of some unlikely allies. While arguing against the dementia tax on the basis that it creates perverse incentives and fails to spread the financial burden among all those who can afford to pay, I found that the most common objection seemed to be against dipping into inheritance at all.