Pay to Retire?

Okay ... my wife pointed this one out to me and ... well ... it's just too wrong to not say something about it. (BBC News Article)

For those of you that don't feel like following the link the basic premise of the story is that in the UK they are discussing a plan that would require all citizens to pay up to 20,000 pounds (at today's rate that would be $32,840) in order to pay for health care costs.

Yes ... that's right ... in order to retire you would potentially have to pay the government over 30,000 dollars and in exchange "a certain amount of social care would be provided free to everyone."

...

A "certain" amount....

Um ... yeah. I'll buy that ...

So why is this being considered? Because the current system isn't 'fair enough' ... you see 75% of the population has over the 23,000 pounds limit in their retirement savings to get government funding for their care. These people often have to spend their savings on their health care ... this is just not fair!

Wait a second ... let me get this straight ... 75% of the people have over 23,000 in savings, but have to spend that on their health care and that's bad. So the answer is to seize 20,000 from them when they retire in order to, um, pay for their health care. So instead of THEM having to spend their savings for it, instead the government is simply going to SEIZE it from them before hand; yeah ... that sounds like a perfect government plan. And I'll just bet that the service they get for that 20,000 is going to be the same as if they had paid 20,000 before this government intervention.

This type of plan will likely significantly increase the demand for the public care, and likely will not significantly change the supply of personnel to handle the public care. The obvious result of which will be higher costs to the taxpayer than the 20,000 pounds will cover (as governments seem all to adept at ignoring things that will increase the costs of such programs) and worse care for the elderly that need it. This will result in elderly care being rationed even more or higher taxes on the producers of the economy, most likely it will end up being both.

Here is a thought ... lets stop worrying about being 'fair' and put some thought into things. Okay ... it sucks having to spend your 20,000 on medical care when you get older, but does having the government take that 20,000 away from you really suck any less? Is having to 'spend most of their savings on care' worse than having the government take most of their savings to pay for care? Seriously ... on what level is this even remotely logical?

Okay ... admittedly the plan does say 'make payments up to 20,000 pounds' ... so it is assumed that people with less savings would have to pay less than that ... but realistically that doesn't make the plan any better ... it will still increase the workload and cost of maintaining that public care system, and I would be willing to bet that the income generated in the end will not match the increased cost of the program. It's just another way for them to take from those that worked hard, made good choices, and saved so that they can give it to those that were too dumb or too lazy to do it for themselves.

Maybe I'm just becoming a cold hearted bastard as I get older ... but I think that more often than not in life you get what you deserve ... what you earn. I don't believe that anyone has a right to the property of another and that property includes their retirement savings. They have exchanged a part of their lives for that income in the first place, they did the right thing by saving it so that they could enjoy their retirement, they made the right choices, exercised restraint in their spending during their working years to get to the point where they could retire and have some of those savings to enjoy. Now the government wants to come along and mandate that they pay a portion of those savings to fund health care? And predominately fund health care for those that didn't work hard enough, or save smartly enough (or at all) but now want to enjoy the same care as those who did.

Those that work for it and save deserve better lives and better retirements ... those that don't ... well ... you do the math.