Who should pay for aged care?

 There is currently a "discussion" about who should be paying for aged care - and the inevitable suggestion that the "wealthy" should pay more.

I am not wealthy by any means.  For the purposes of this argument I would be considered "poor", even "very poor".  That said I am not expecting the "wealthy" to pay more for their aged care than they already do. Most of them are already paying more anyway.

The Senior Cat was paying 85% of his income into the nursing home at the end of his life. It was by no means the only expense involved. That was just the base rate. There were all sorts of hidden costs involved. We dipped into his savings all the time he was there. We did his laundry because it was an additional expense. We bought his pharmacy items. (We also bought the latter from the chemist of our choice which was much cheaper than the chemist the nursing home used. They had a neat little arrangement between them.) We paid for anything above his basic board and lodging, even the "entertainment" he was often helping to provide.

Despite all this he would be one who would be "caught" by the current proposal. The house would have been sold and yet more money would have been taken from the proceeds. I doubt the standard of care would have gone up. The Senior Cat had a reasonable standard of care given to him but it was (a) because he was articulate and polite and (b) because Middle Cat and I took it in turns to go in on alternate days. That was hard work but I do not regret the commitment we made one little bit. It was the only way we could be sure he would be as well cared for as possible under the circumstances. I still wish he had been able to end his days here in his own home. I still feel guilty that I am no longer going in and out of that nursing home on alternate days because, as one of the staff told me, "Visitors like you keep us on our toes." They should not need visitors to be doing the right thing.

I am tired of being told the elderly need to do more to pay their own way. They often have. Many of them have worked hard for fifty or more years. They scrimped and saved and bought their own homes, homes without landscaped gardens, patios and swimming pools. If they went on holiday it was not to Bali. Most of them made one big overseas trip when they retired. Some of them bought a caravan and "did a bit of travel" around the state - or even to another state if they could afford the fuel costs. 

The next generation, the more recently retired who are not yet in need of home care packages and nursing home facilities are retired only from paid work. They are the generation which do the school runs, the before and after school care and the school holiday care. They care for children when they are ill and often for the very elderly as well. This is also the generation which coaches the footy team and makes sure the school has enough volunteers to help with hearing the little ones read. These are the people who do the vast majority of the "volunteer" work without which society would fall apart. They spend their days so busy doing things for other people some of them wish they were back at work for a rest. 

An aging population is an issue. It is a problem. The idea that everything should be taken from them in order to pay for their care is not going to solve the problem. If people believe that is going to happen then they will simply spend what they have while they can.