Coalition to Set Care Cap at £75,000
- 07 Jan
The review to be announced later today, is expected to include the Dilnot Care Cap, which will set a cap on long term care of £75,000.
The cap is expected to be introduced in 2015/16, and is more than double the amount recommented by Andrew Dilnot's Commission, which was advised to be £35,000.In their mid-term review at 2.30pm today, prime minister David Cameron and deputy Nick Clegg will announce a series of policy reforms, which should include supporting individuals with social care costs.
Chancellor George Osborne has dismissed the proposal for the lower cap, as this is expected to increase the cost to the government up to £1.7bn per year. Instead this higher cap means it will cost £700m a year.
Currently the means-tested threshold where people are required to fund the full costs of their care is £23,250. The Dilnot commission recommends increasing this to £100,000.
As recommended by the Dilnot proposals, the cap will not cover the costs of accommodation or food.
Dilnot said that an increase to the cap on long-term care costs could go to £50,000, but after it emerged the Department of Health was considering setting the cap at between £50,000 and £60,000, he warned it "could mean people with lower incomes and lower wealth would not receive adequate protection”:
Going significantly beyond £50,000 in 2011 prices would begin to make the cap significantly less effective and it would stop having the effects we saw as most important like risk pooling.
Andy Burnham, Labour’s shadow health secretary, said in response to reports of the £75,000 cap:
If these reports are true, the government will have fallen far short of a fair solution to the care crisis. A cap on care bills of £75,000 per person, or £150,000 per couple, will not protect the home and life savings of an average family.
Image source: http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/200384
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