The Guardian today carries an article about the problems of the so-called death-tax, the white paper on social care, and government proposals for reform, all of which seem to stretch long into the future without a decision in sight.
As someone who has personal knowledge and experience of a (German) government who foresaw the care problem and did something about it 15 years ago, I find it impossible to understand why our present (English) government should be flailing about clutching at straws such as a ‘death tax’, as if none of them had seen the care problem looming until yesterday.
Within a year of moving to Berlin to work in 1994, the amount of compulsory contributions going out from my salary increased by around 2%, owing to the ‘Pflegeversicherung Beitragssatz‘ – the Care Insurance Contribution. Introduced in January 1995, this was a pre-emptive measure by the German government for whom it was plain that an increasingly large elderly population and improved longevity would result before very long at all in a situation where significant numbers of old people might require care. AARP have a clear, brief summary of the German care insurance situation in English.
It doesn’t need a lot of arithmetic skill to work out that over 15 years, an extra 2% of contributions from everyone’s salaries (especially those overpaid bankers) would add up to quite a decent amount, available to fund care for people who need it now.
If there’s a need for drastic measures in the UK like a ‘death tax’, it’s to make up for years of bad planning and head-in-the-sand social policy. The 15-year old German compulsory care contributions scheme is just one proof of that judgement.
