August 1, 2004
WHY DID THE BRUCE BOTHER?:
Scots face £1bn old age timebombEDDIE BARNES, 8/01/04, The Scotsman)
THE huge cost of Scotland’s population crisis has been exposed by an official government report which warns that the annual bill for caring for the elderly will soar by £1bn in just 15 years.Posted by Orrin Judd at August 1, 2004 8:15 AMBy 2019, the cost of tending to Scotland’s pensioners will have rocketed to £2.5bn every year - an 81% increase on the current price tag - according to the major new study.
Last night experts warned that crippling council tax rises may be necessary to pay for the increased costs, and that people may have to be required to take out compulsory insurance simply to receive care in future.
Meanwhile, government officials said that the ageing population would force a complete overhaul of the social care sector, where elderly people would stay in their own homes rather than go into care, in order to cut costs. The bill for care is rising because of the expected surge in the number of elderly people in Scotland over the next 40 years.
Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that by 2040, one in six Scots - some three-quarters of a million people - will be over 75. The figure today is 364,000.
If senior care is re-organized to keep people in their homes longer, it's hard for me to believe that seniors would object...
Sounds like win/win, if, (and it's a big if), such a system actually saves money.
In the US, it doesn't.
Perhaps you've already raised this point in the past, but it seems likely that a dearth of younger workers to care for the elderly will result in far more deaths due to neglect or mistaken care, as well as euthanasia.
It would well behoove Boomers to take up a vigorous exercise program, so that they will be able to physically care for themselves for as long as their minds hold out.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at August 1, 2004 12:55 PM