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The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

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Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#121

Post by dh2022 »

groggler wrote: post #94
dh2022 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you volunteering yourself and your kids to not taking medication and seeing doctors in your old age? Or are you volunteering "other people"?

Seems like a nasty interpretation to assume a grandfather is other people and make it a straw man argument.. We could just as well ask: Are you volunteering yourself and your children for 30 years hooked up to tubes with partially effective pain medication?

Huh? To answer your question: yes, I absolutely volunteer myself and my kid to be alive as long as possible.

If possible I would volunteer you and your family to stop getting medical care when all of you get old.

Fair?

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#122

Post by dh2022 »

groggler wrote: post #111
mikestew wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you volunteering yourself and your children for 30 years hooked up to tubes with partially effective pain medication? No one spends 30 years hooked to tubes. Ask better questions, or at least dial back on the hyperbole if you'd like a reasonable discussion.

I don't think that is accurate.. but my point was the hyperbole of assuming the pathological case.

Your point is very difficult to understand. I answered your question even though I did not understand its relevance.

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#123

Post by jrs235 »

ryandrake wrote: post #118
jerlam wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents gotta transfer all their money to the kids, and then apply for government assistant because on paper, the parents have no money.

Look up Filial responsibility laws[1]. They're always looking for legal ways to sponge up that wealth. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_responsibility_laws

How does that work? If the parents live in a filial state but the children don't?

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#124

Post by groggler »

dh2022 wrote: post #122
groggler wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is accurate.. but my point was the hyperbole of assuming the pathological case.

Your point is very difficult to understand. I answered your question even though I did not understand its relevance.

It sounds like you have not had much off the record contact with members of the medical community. Perhaps a summary of the beliefs of the community I grew up in would help:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40494645/

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#125

Post by teo_zero »

dash2 wrote: post #56

I read the article and didn't actually see any evidence that this is not a reasonably fair and functional system. I did read: * People complaining that the cafe wasn't as good as they liked. * The fact that old people have signed up for a retirement village. * The fact that some of them get confused and need help. What's the evidence base here?

Maybe the buy-back scheme?

> when he dies, the company will buy back his share from his next of kin for less than he originally paid.

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#126

Post by dredmorbius »

fludlow wrote: post #82
dredmorbius wrote: post #70

Sloppy editing? Residents face service charges averaging £524 a month, on top of ground rents that can exceed £500 a year. £500 a year would be implausibly low. I suspect a few missing nils or a thousands indicator.

Ground rent is a bizarre UK property law concept. The resident will have paid for the leasehold of the property (typically a one off payment for 99 years occupancy which is transferable if they want to sell to someone else) but the company retains the freehold and can charge ground rent in return for absolutely nothing (this is different to a service charge which would fund things like communal space/facilities upkee…

Thanks!

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#127

Post by ethbr1 »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #103
leoqa wrote: post #43

I’m not particularly sympathetic to retirement home narratives that paint each person as a lonely, incompetent senior wasting away. I witnessed first hand how my mother spent her adulthood partying instead of providing and now it’s become a critical issue for our family to provide for her. Ultimately I don’t expect my children (or staff-journalist) to project pity on me for my circumstances. I run a weekly route with…

> I think it is everyone’s duty to buy long-term care insurance (perhaps the government should provide this, as we will all need it) this is called Social Security

Demographics and decreased immigration would like a word...

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#128

Post by croon »

spwa4 wrote: post #91
rco8786 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean that's just trivially true right? For profit corporations are designed to maximize profits, therefore they must try to maximize the amount of money they extract from their customers.

As opposed to public companies? Come to Northwest Europe and you'll find a very similar problem: elderly in homes, so incredibly understaffed that there simply isn't anyone to pick up someone who falls for hours. These days every few months there's a new "accident" reported in these places. They have been destaffed to dangerous levels. Apparently last months' issue was that the administration was wrong. A room that h…

Those are generally private companies too, at least in Sweden, I would assume most of the nordics.

That last 20-30 years have seen increasing privatization of services paid for with public funds, in everything from infrastructure, healthcare, eldercare and schools. Of course they maximize profits (maximizing residents, students, patients) and minimize costs (staff, care).

It's the same problem, not a different one.

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#129

Post by spwa4 »

croon wrote: post #128
spwa4 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to public companies? Come to Northwest Europe and you'll find a very similar problem: elderly in homes, so incredibly understaffed that there simply isn't anyone to pick up someone who falls for hours. These days every few months there's a new "accident" reported in these places. They have been destaffed to dangerous levels. Apparently last months' issue was that the administration was wrong. A room that h…

Those are generally private companies too, at least in Sweden, I would assume most of the nordics. That last 20-30 years have seen increasing privatization of services paid for with public funds, in everything from infrastructure, healthcare, eldercare and schools. Of course they maximize profits (maximizing residents, students, patients) and minimize costs (staff, care). It's the same problem, not a different one.

But that is not a property of private industry ... or I should say, it is, but it is not a difference with public industry.

In public industry the name of the game is to maximize subsidy for minimal actual work done. Lots of people, but nothing happens.

If you were alive in the 80s you would have seen this in action. People who "work" ... but not much at all. Many people, but zero activity. I'm told it was much worse in the 60s.

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#130

Post by croon »

spwa4 wrote: post #129
croon wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are generally private companies too, at least in Sweden, I would assume most of the nordics. That last 20-30 years have seen increasing privatization of services paid for with public funds, in everything from infrastructure, healthcare, eldercare and schools. Of course they maximize profits (maximizing residents, students, patients) and minimize costs (staff, care). It's the same problem, not a different one.

But that is not a property of private industry ... or I should say, it is, but it is not a difference with public industry. In public industry the name of the game is to maximize subsidy for minimal actual work done. Lots of people, but nothing happens. If you were alive in the 80s you would have seen this in action. People who "work" ... but not much at all. Many people, but zero activity. I'm told it was much worse…

There are inherent incentives for the behavior I described (and I described those incentives) with the private industry, but those are absent from public institutions. An absence of an incentive does not equal an opposite or corresponding countering incentive.

It could of course pan out like you describe, but the only guarantee for it is if humans are inherently lazy, and while I agree some are I don't believe this to be a general fact. Just look at teachers or nurses for example. They're certainly not doing it for the pay, and a lot of them are absolutely going above and beyond.

Is your claim that not funneling profits to private holding companies and instead hiring extra nurses with that money would not lead to better care? Or what is the comparative claim?

Yes, I was alive in the 80s, and I'm not sure what you're referring to.

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