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Older people with social illnesses should be able to make cash deductions if they pay someone to spend time with them, and even if the dog goes to rest. It is proposed by government investigators who want grandchildren and siblings to be covered by the deduction if they purchase services for the relative.
Retiree playing petanque in a park. Stock Photography.
– We think it may be easier for family members to help the elderly, and we think you may postpone the decision to retire if you receive a cash deduction, says researcher Ulf Rehnberg.
Rehnberg proposes five new positions covered by the cash deduction for those who have reached 65; companionship at home or outdoors, cooking and baking for household needs, facilitating household supervision when the elderly person is at home, planting plants and picking berries and fruits in the garden and resting pets.
Unlike current regulations, siblings and grandchildren should also be entitled to a cash deduction if they purchase services for a relative over 65, according to the proposal. However, the services must be performed by an independent actor.
– Here we try to target family members who help, mainly children, but also siblings, sometimes grandchildren and married people. So they can buy the services rather than perform them themselves, Rehnberg says.
However, the researcher believes that a special cash deduction for the elderly is not appropriate, and believes that there may be grounds to investigate the age limit issue itself, as it risks creating ambiguity on the question of who is responsible for providing support to the elderly.
– There is already a surface of conflict today, an ambiguity as to who is really responsible for meeting the needs of older people, says Rehnberg and continues:
– If the state says that now we should have a cash deduction that only applies to the elderly, that is, exactly to the people that the state wants the municipality to deal with, I think then it should have an order and a system suitable for it, he says.
The Kommunal union criticizes the proposal, arguing that it runs the risk of leading to increased inequality and a deterioration in care for the elderly.
“If this decision becomes a reality, we run the risk of seeing a system change in Swedish elderly care. I assume that the government led by the Social Democrats will never present such a proposal to the Riksdag, ”Tobias Baudin, president of the Kommunal union, says in a press release.
But Rehnberg believes that the annual sum the proposal would cost the state, 86 million Swedish crowns, is small in this context.
– The cost of subsidizing a deduction per box for the elderly is very low compared to the cost of municipal care for the elderly. I don’t think this erodes it, he says.
Fixed: In a previous version of the text there was an incorrect wording about who should be able to perform the services.
