2023-08-21 04:00:11
Lhe government announced in July the postponement indefinitely of the bill on “ageing well” put forward by the deputies of the presidential majority, and with modest ambitions. The need to prepare our public services and society as a whole for the aging of the population, in particular the risks associated with dependency, is however more glaring than ever.
According to the report submitted to the government in 2019 by the president of the High Council for the financing of social protection, Dominique Libault, the number of dependent elderly people in France might increase from 1.265 million in 2015 to 2.2 million in 2050, and the need additional financing by 2030 would amount to €9.2 billion per year.
The financing needs of the health, care and support system in the broad sense are therefore immense. It is not only a question of taking care of more people, but also of the most dependent, as the scandal of the Orpea retirement homes has cruelly highlighted.
In addition to the need for global financing on a national scale, the inequalities of access to “aging well” are flagrant today. The differences between territories in terms of means and planning capacities are major. While some families may have access – subject to availability and depending on their income – to public nursing homes through the departments, many others find themselves in great difficulty when faced with dependency, given the limited number of places and the rest at a very high cost to the establishments. Access to accommodation and support solutions then depends directly on the assets available to the person concerned or their relatives.
between generations
Aging and increasing dependency thus shed new light on the inequalities in our country. How can we ensure dignified support for those whose wealth is insufficient without placing a disproportionate burden on families? In other words, how to ensure fairness in the financing of old age policy, both between generations and within each of them?
It is not unusual to consider that, as they approach the end of their life, the care and support needs of the elderly can be financed by the sale of part of the assets they have accumulated. From this point of view, the principle of equity between the generations would rather be respected, a fortiori if we take into account the fact that those born in the decades from 1940 to 1960 rather benefited from a favorable economic situation compared to the people entering the labor market today.
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