A plan to split the proceeds of a national insurance rise between the NHS and social care could worsen intergenerational injustice
An announcement on social care funding is imminent, with a national insurance rise the probable outcome. But what ought to be unambiguously good news, after years of delay, is not. Far from being the best solution to a problem regarded as intractable only because governments do not want to pay for it, the proposal to raise up to £10bn a year from extra NI contributions is closer to the worst.
The current impasse is untenable, not least because of the burden it places on the NHS. The difficulties created for hospitals by the lack of suitable social care arrangements have been documented for years. With the health service facing unprecedented pent-up demand as another autumn-winter season of Covid and its knock-on effects approaches, ministers know they have to do something if they are not to risk a wave of public wrath.