Report warns of "explosion" in number of elderly (From The Northern Echo)

pitiful pensions in the future ? try living on mine now!!!!

The report describes the elephant on the sitting room - we all know institutions like the welfare state and NHS cannot meet future needs, the politicians know it, but it would be electoral suicide to say so. So it gets ignored as politicians are only interested in the short-term and what is popular sound bite anyway.

My parents’ generation and millions like them are now elderly and in receipt of fairly continuous state health care, index linked Government pensions (both were public servants in their careers). They are now getting out far more than they have ever paid in and live very comfortably. The State provides wonderfully for them. But it cannot sustain that burden however, not for everyone.

The Welfare System cannot pay out more than is paid into it. It has reached a tipping point where, if it was a business, it would be technically bankrupt because its liabilities are greater than its assets.

I expect it to be very different for me if I reach my parent’s age - I will have to pay for much more of my own health care, so I will probably take out private provision. I will only have a small private pension plus a rather worthless State pension. To fund my retirement I will have to release equity from personal savings and/or property. I am under no illusion that the State will be my majority provider in 20-30 years’ time.

The ticking time bomb is just not old age. An increasing percentage of the baby boom population are living much longer, but it’s also the future costs of long-term treatable health issues that are affecting people of all ages. Diabetes, obesity, smoking related ill heath, substance and alcohol abuse for example. Just walk around any town or city centre and look about – as a nation we’re grossly unfit and not looking after ourselves, obese kids smoke, eat junk food, obese adults smoke, east junk food, alcohol abuse is everywhere, but Cameron has just bottled his pledge for a minimum price per unit. Once again, an opportunity that might be for the longer term greater good of all is dropped because it might be unpopular in the short term.

Who is going to pay for all the associated health care costs in future decades? If you think it is the State you are delusional. It simply cannot afford to do so, but no Government or Opposition will say the obvious – that people take better care of themselves or pay for their own health costs. That will be the reality however in the not too distant future.

Well within living memory to reach the age of 100 was a rareity only achieved by a tiny percentage of the population. Thanks to medical advances since the second world war life expectancy has shot up and along with it an ever increasing number of elderly people hitting a 100 in record numbers (mainly women), this is now perceived as average. But what about the huge numbers who live well into their 80's and 90's in their hundreds of thousands and soon to be millions? With global population explosion, dwindling natural resources and competition for space and farmland, This is all going to have huge consequences on the welfare state and NHS which all has to be funded by taxes by future generations. I dont know whats coming in decades ahead but Im pretty sure harsh draconinian measures will need to be taken if either a natural event or war hasnt reduced the population by a significant amount. The tipping point regarding taxes has already been reached with more being taken out of the welfare system than is being collected in taxes and we are only starting to feel the initial effects, the full bite of this wont happen for another 20 years plus but the slide has begun. To sustain the levels of care, pensions and medicine todays pensioners now enjoy would mean working taxpayers paying up to 80% of their wages in tax by 2050 and thats not going to happen. Under 50's Scoff at your peril, as todays crop of pensioners who are 60 plus are the lucky ones (although they either dont realise it and/or wont admit it), the future is bleak for all those below 50 if they manage to retire at 70 plus on a meagre private and non existent state pension and survive beyond 80 on rationed care & healthcare!”