Burstow: No urgency in elderly care reform

British Parliament member Paul Burstow said he fears the government may put an elderly care financing plan in the "too-difficult-to-do drawer." A proposal by economist Andrew Dilnot, who was appointed in July to recommend elderly and disabled care reforms, involved the elderly paying $54,000 for their care over their lifetime and the government paying the rest. Each year an estimated 20,000 elderly people end up selling their homes to pay for long-term residential care, which costs about $40,000 a year. Burstow said Parliament and the Cabinet have "no sense of urgency" about supporting and implementing the plan as Dilnot wrote it, The Daily Telegraph reported Thursday. "For the thousands of families navigating their way through an often complex and confusing care system reform cannot come soon enough," Burstow said. "I fear the Coalition could be tempted to put care financing back in the 'too difficult to do' drawer," he added. Ministers said in July they supported the plan but couldn't promise the $2.8 billion per year to fund it. Burstow said he fears British Prime Minister David Cameron will implement a "Dilnot Lite" plan, which would insure only the elderly who pay a fee to opt in to the financing program. "If such a scheme could work, it would have been introduced somewhere by now, yet there is nowhere else on the planet that seriously thinks a voluntary scheme could work," Burstow said.