Utica national insurance top news.

News - PM hails health service rebirth

jweiss123 — Tue, 27 May 2008 05:13:56 +0000

Tony Blair has urged voters to recognise how massive investment in the NHS is helping millions of patients across the country.

He made the pitch from the new 422m University College Hospital in London, and called on electors to look further than negative newspaper headlines.

and reform was creating “an NHS for today’s world”, he said.

He was touring new health facilities as part of Labour’s campaign for the 10 June European and local elections.

I don’t suppose there is any system in the world that could treat one million people in 36 hours and things not go wrong

Tony Blair

The PM will hope his comments counter Tory claims that much of the extra National Insurance cash used to improve public services has been wasted.

But shadow health secretary Tim Yeo said: “The amazing work performed in the NHS each day happens despite this government, not because of it.”

Mr Blair met doctors, nurses and administrators during his visit to the state-of-the art UCH building, which was funded under the controversial private finance initiative.

It opens next April and will include the largest cancer centre inside a general hospital in the UK.

‘Genuine improvements’

“I want to say to the public this is not a one off - this is what is happening in every single part of our country today,” said Mr Blair.

“It is when we have a strong economy that we can get the money into our public services and that we get the investment we need.

The prime minister conceded that on a regular basis stories are published about poor treatment in the NHS.

But he insisted: “I don’t suppose there is any system in the world that could treat one million people in 36 hours and things not go wrong.

“That happens in our healthcare system - it happens in every healthcare system in the world.”

Cancer scans

Mr Blair said the millions of people using NHS facilities were being treated quickly, seeing “genuine improvements”, “and realising that underneath the headlines, the NHS is being reborn for today’s world”.

He said additional staff and equipment had led to a 10% increase in diagnostic scans for cancer patients.

The main reason for the delays is a shortage in skilled staff - Labour has let down too many patients by failing to get a grip on this

Tim Yeo

Some 250,000 more scans will be conducted each year from this summer, his aides said.

They claimed people with acute leukaemia, children suffering from cancer and an overwhelming majority of patients with testicular and breast cancer were already receiving treatment within a month of being referred by a GP.

Since 1997, the number of 750,000 MRI scanners has more than doubled from 110 to 223, while numbers of 450,000 CT
scanners have increased from 200 to 330.

An additional 1,000
radiologists have been recruited and training places for the
have doubled.

But Mr Yeo said while patients may be referred for cancer treatment within two weeks “they still face delays before diagnosis and treatment”.

“The announcement to increase the number of cancer scans is therefore long overdue - the main reason for the delays is a shortage in skilled staff,” he said.

“Labour has let down too many patients by failing to get a grip on this - vacancy rates for diagnostic has increased by 3.6% in 2000 to 6.1% in 2003.”

News - ‘Tax Freedom Day’ getting later

jweiss123 — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:47:22 +0000

Sunday is the day when the average UK worker will have earned enough to pay off their annual tax bill.

The Adam Smith Institute think-tank has calculated 30 May is Tax Freedom Day - and it has arrived three days later than last year.

That is a sign the tax burden on the average person has risen, it says.

In the US the theoretical Tax Freedom Day is on 11 April, while in the euro zone it is 28 June, the think-tank says.

‘Stealth taxes’

The rise in National contributions and petrol prices has also meant that Tax Freedom Day is later than previous years, according the right-wing think-tank.

Gordon Brown is taking about 6bn a year out of pensions and there are taxes you don’t notice

Dr Eamonn Butler, Director of the Adam Smith Institute

Dr Eamonn Butler, Director of the Adam Smith Institute, has predicted that next year the date will be a day later than 2004.

“After that who knows what might happen. There are plenty of stealth taxes.

“The Gordon Brown is taking about 6bn a year out of pensions and there are taxes on all sorts of things that you don’t notice.

“Certainly, we are spending more on public services than we have been and people look at the growth in public sector .

“Private sector employment isn’t growing at all in this country. I’m not convinced that the extra spending goes into delivering much better services,” Dr Butler said.

Tax

In the US the tax burden on the average citizen is generally lower than it is in the UK.

Recent tax cuts there mean workers enjoyed their Tax Freedom Day on April 11, the earliest for 37 years.

However, in the Euro zone earners will not stop working for their until June 28.

In Denmark and Sweden taxpayers have to work until the end of July.

News - One in 10 employing domestic help

jweiss123 — Sat, 24 May 2008 11:29:40 +0000

One in 10 people employ domestic help to do cleaning, cooking or ironing, according to a new report.

The Work Foundation study said 74% of people said they did so because of lack of time, and 83% because they would rather be doing something else.

It said most of the estimated 2m nannies, gardeners, cleaners and butlers are employed on an informal, basis.

It urged the government to do more to help people make more formal contracts.

The study found more than half of domestic staff were employed through word-of-mouth.

One quarter of carers and cleaners were paid below the minimum wage, according to the report.

Alexandra Jones of the Work Foundation said:
“Most domestic relationships are in the informal economy. Whilst this can work well for both sides, we are storing up longer term problems as this
sector expands.

Bringing these jobs into the public sphere… should help tackle the stigma that remains attached to these crucial roles

Alexandra Jones
Work Foundation spokeswoman

“Those paid cash-in-hand for household tasks will not be
getting National Insurance payments, and are likely to be storing up pension
problems - particularly as they are predominantly women, who are already more
likely to be in poverty in retirement.”

The group, which is an independent non-profit organisation, cautiously welcomed the recently announced tax breaks for households employing
nannies.

But it said the breaks were unlikely to help very many households
because of the low qualifying threshold, and tended to exclude family members who took caring roles.

It urged the government to
raise the tax breaks and look again at how to recognise the enormous
contribution made by family members.

Ms Jones said: “We need to talk more about the hidden world of housework, as well as childcare and eldercare.

REASONS FOR HIRING HELP

Rather do other things - 83%

Have not got the time - 74%

An affordable perk - 70%

Housework ‘waste of time’ - 50%

Too tired for chores - 46%

Too big a job - 29%

Prevents arguments - 24%

“Bringing these jobs into the public sphere, and recognising them as valuable to the economy, should help tackle the stigma that remains attached to these crucial roles.”

One out of every five people asked said they could not cope with their domestic responsibilities.

This rose to one out of every three for those with children under the age of 16.

The report suggests wealthy households are more likely to have access to domestic help than lower income households.

Those with an income above 70,000 a year are 16 times more likely to employ domestic help than those earning less than 25,000.

While the biggest users of household help are those in full-time self-employment, 29% of whom employ someone to help with their chores.

The Work Foundation conducts research and consultancy work with companies and government departments aimed at improving the quality of working life.

News - Lib Dem sums add up, says Cable

jweiss123 — Fri, 23 May 2008 03:21:56 +0000

Lib Dem treasury spokesman Vince Cable has insisted there is no black hole in his party’s tax and spending plans.

The party has pledged to axe top-up fees, replace the Council Tax with a new local income tax and give the elderly free personal care.

To pay for this, Mr Cable would bring in a 50p tax rate for earnings over 100,000 a year.

He would also axe Labour’s child trust fund and ID card schemes as part of 5bn a year in Whitehall cuts.

‘Widening inequality’

The cash saved there would go to fund pensions, policing and health, he said.

Labour and the have also declared war on what they see as Whitehall waste.

But Mr Cable said his plans steered a course between the of the left and the social inequality of the right.

Addressing the party’s annual conference in Bournemouth, Mr Cable said there could be fair taxation and better services without “this obsessive Labour belief, New or old, that the man in Whitehall (and it usually is a man) knows best”.

And it was also possible to have a liberal economy without “widening inequality and a free-for-all where the vulnerable are trampled underfoot”.

“They are both wrong: I believe we can have both a liberal and fair economy, better public services and tax cuts for the less well off, strong growth with tough financial discipline.

“Our Britain, a Lib Dem Britain, would be a country which embraces economic freedom and social justice.”

‘No new taxes’

He ridiculed Tony Blair for considering a 50p top tax rate “dangerously radical” - suggesting Labour policies already forced many poorer people to pay much higher rates.

“We believe that too many people on modest incomes pay too much tax.

“Under our proposals for taxation and public spending 70% of taxpayers would pay less tax than they do at present.”

Mr Cable promised no new taxes other than the new top rate of income tax and pledged not increase National Insurance rates.

He also ruled out lowering the threshold to below 100,000.

‘Tough choices’

Speaking earlier to reporters he said the plans were fully costed and would keep within existing spending limits.

“Our basic approach is to spend more than we save,” he added.

But he admitted the plans involved “tough choices”, and would lead to Whitehall job cuts, over and above those already unveiled by Chancellor Gordon Brown.

“I am not going to pretend the Liberal Democrats are offering civil service jobs for life because we are not,” he said.

He said the Lib Dems would scrap the department of trade and industry and dramatically scale back regional industrial assistance, which he said was overly-bureaucratic and “top down”.

‘Household debt’

He said the Lib Dems would also cancel the final stages of the Eurofighter project and end the “incestuous” relationship between government and the defence industry, opening up procurement to international competition.

Other Lib Dem savings would come from:

Cutting the use of agency staff in the NHS, slimming down the Department of Health and cutting back on centralised targets and controls
Abolishing the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
Selling off the Royal Mint to the private sector.

Mr Cable is also calling for immediate action to tackle Britain’s growing personal debt mountain.

He is urging lenders to stop “recklessly fuelling” the surge in consumer spending and introduce more into the system and remove incentives to borrow.

The Lib Dems also want financial institutions to give a small percentage of their profit to support Citizen’s Advice Bureau.

News - Pensions poverty ‘will hit NI’

jweiss123 — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:36:18 +0000

Three quarters of a million people in Northern Ireland may face poverty when they retire, according to the General Consumer council.

It also said fewer than half the population had made any pension provision while a similar percentage had little or no knowledge of pension issues.

The figures are being highlighted on the day a government commission released its own report on pension problems in the UK as a whole.

The General Consumer Council said people in Northern Ireland were too busy paying off mortgages and other debts to put money into a pension plan.

The council’s Alan Walker said: “With an ageing population, Northern Ireland consumers need to be more aware of their own retirement provision and not rely on the basic state pension to support them in the future.

UK’S PENSION CRISIS

Why many are heading for poverty in old age

At-a-glance

“In 2003, the basic state pension was only worth 15% of the average annual UK
income and this is expected to fall to 5% over the next 50 years.”

“As this debate continues we need the government to be clear about the issues and provide security for the future for those with concerns,” he said.

“We also need appropriate regulation in the private sector markets to help restore public confidence in private pension products.

“Consumers also need to consider their future and how they can plan for a
happy retirement, free from money problems.”

More than 12 million working people in the UK are not saving enough for their retirement, the report into pensions has found.

The Pensions Commission said a mix of higher taxes, more saving and a higher average retirement age was needed to solve the pensions crisis.

Tough choices

If taxes, savings or retirement ages were not increased, would suffer a 30% decline in relative incomes, the report said.

The commission is due to set out specific next year.

The First Report of the Pensions Commission

Executive summary (108 KB)

Main report (2.1MB)

Appendices (1.19MB)

Download the reader here

The Pensions Commission was asked in 2002 to look into the state of UK retirement provision.

The UK’s ageing population means that, in future years, taxpayers will have to support an increasing number of over-65s through the state pension.

Given the ageing population, the report says that society and individuals must choose a mix of four options.

These are either:

Pensioners becoming poorer relative to the rest of society; or
Taxes/National Insurance contributions devoted to pensions rising; or
Savings rising; or
Average retirement ages rising.

The report says that because the option of poorer pensioners is , some of higher taxes, higher savings and/or a higher average retirement age is needed.

If the retirement age does not rise, state pensions spending or private savings will have to rise by 57bn a year, the report says, to keep pensioners’ living standards at current levels.

News - Race case Gurkha receives £55,000

jweiss123 — Tue, 20 May 2008 23:56:35 +0000

An ex-Gurkha who claimed his pension was so small he was nearly forced to beg has settled his race discrimination case against the Ministry of Defence.

Lal Budha, 44, has agreed a payment from the MoD of 55,000, cutting short a tribunal in Croydon, south London.

Mr Budha, of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, claimed his Army pension was 95 a month and was a fifth of that a British soldier would get.

He said: “This will help me help other Gurkhas, not financially but mentally.”

The tribunal had heard the father-of-two, who has medals for long service and good conduct, was discharged in 2002 on medical grounds and given indefinite leave to stay in the UK.

Liver transplant

Before then Mr Budha - who comes from a long line of Gurkhas - had served for nearly 24 years in Hong Kong, Brunei, South Korea and the Falklands.

But he was put on light duties after suffering jaundice and hepatitis, which led to him being airlifted to the UK from Hong Kong for a liver transplant.

He was discharged in the UK - thought to be the first Gurkha to be so, where the cost of living is higher than in Nepal.

After paying for his wife and children to join him, Mr Budha was left so poor he begging, the tribunal heard.

“My bank balance was so getting so low I was thinking of living on the street and becoming a beggar,” he said.

He also claimed he was paid 38,000 less in his career than a British soldier would have been and that he did not receive a terminal grant of 18,000 discharge or benefit from any National Insurance .

‘Living in poverty’

Commenting on the case, Mr Budha’s solicitor Turhan Wishart said the case should “shame the MoD into stopping this iniquity”.

“They are going to literally have Gurkhas discharged in the UK immediately living in poverty unless they do
something about it, ” he said.

“Mr Budha’s case may well cause them to think very carefully about what they
do.”

Padma Shrestha, a founder of the Gurkha Veterans’ , said he wanted Gurkhas to have equal pensions and the right to live in Britain.

He said: “It will inspire the Gurkhas to fight the British Army for equality, equal pensions.”

He believed there were about 1,000 retired Gurkhas living in Britain.

The British Army has recruited Gurkhas from hill tribes in Nepal since 1815 after their potential as warriors was first realised at the height of British empire-building.

Following the partition of India in 1947, an agreement between Nepal, India and Britain meant four Gurkha regiments from the Indian army were transferred to the British Army, becoming the Gurkha Brigade.

Since then, the Gurkhas have fought for the British all over the world, winning 13 Victoria Crosses between them.

News - ‘Benefits barrier’ to UK pensions

jweiss123 — Mon, 19 May 2008 23:24:58 +0000

Means tested benefits are putting people off saving, the Pension Adair Turner has told a committee of MPs.

Mr Turner said people on low incomes feared that saving would bar them from receiving means-tested benefits such as the Pension Credit.

Complexity and high charges were also putting as many as 12 million people off saving for retirement, he said.

In October, the Commission warned that the UK faced a pension black hole.

At the time, Mr Turner said a mix of higher taxes, more saving and a higher average retirement age was needed to solve the UK’s pension crisis.

Certainty there are some people whose rational incentive to save is impacted by means testing

Adair Turner, Pensions Commission

Benefit impact

Mr Turner was appearing in front of the Work and Pensions Committee along with fellow Jeannie Drake and John Hills.

MPs pressed the commissioners on the possible negative impact of means testing on the UK’s savings culture.

Mr Turner said that if means testing continued to be extended, large swathes of the UK population would eventually be claiming some form of benefit or tax credit.

He was not criticising means testing in principle, he said. But it was proving a “barrier” to saving.

“Certainty there are some people whose rational incentive to save is impacted by means testing,” Mr Turner told MPs.

Mr Turner added that financial advisers were put off advising clients on low incomes to start a pension for fear of facing future accusations of .

Financial advisers feared that the expansion of means testing could mean that clients would have their savings cancelled out by cuts in benefit.

Poorer pensioners

The Pensions Commission was asked in 2002 to look into the state of UK retirement provision.

In October, it produced a report outlining the scale of the UK’s pension crisis.

The state pension is expected to get smaller and smaller

The UK’s ageing population means that, in future years, taxpayers will have to support an increasing number of over-65s through the state pension.

The interim report said that society and must choose a mix of four options including:

Pensioners becoming poorer relative to the rest of society
Taxes/National Insurance contributions devoted to pensions rising
Savings rising
Average retirement ages rising

The Pensions Commission will produce a final report next autumn, which will outline in greater detail its recommendations for overcoming the UK’s pension crisis.

When asked by MPs if he would bring forward the publication of his report Mr Turner said it was “More important to get out recommendations right rather than early”.

News - Women facing retirement poverty

jweiss123 — Sun, 18 May 2008 22:25:27 +0000

Women are being “short changed” over pensions, according to the TUC.

The union body said a combination of low pay and part-time work meant many women were unable to build up a sufficient company pension.

In addition, many women miss out on a full state pension due to time spent away from work to look after children.

Firms should have to contribute to their workers’ pensions and state pension rules be relaxed to help women, the TUC said.

Precarious retirement

Our pensions system was not designed with women in mind

Brendan Barber, TUC

More women than ever are in the workforce but almost half of them are in part-time employment.

Many part-time jobs do not bring access to a company pension scheme.

The TUC calculated that only 15% of unskilled women in part-time jobs are members of a company pension scheme.

“Our pensions system was not designed with women in mind,” said TUC general Brendan Barber.

“It is out of date and condemns many millions of women to an and precarious retirement.”

Mr Barber urged the government to help plug the gap in female pension provision.

Employers should be made to contribute to their employees’ pensions and rules stopping women with less than 10 years National Insurance from collecting state pension should be abolished, Mr Barber said.

News - Call to overhaul UK state pension

jweiss123 — Sat, 17 May 2008 21:04:59 +0000

The UK pension system has been branded inadequate and too complex by a leading retirement think-tank.

The Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) said replacing the state pension with a “citizen’s pension” would help tackle and .

The change would see pensions being calculated on length of residency in the UK rather than National Insurance (NI) contributions.

Reform could reduce poverty by aiding people with broken records.

Compulsion

The PPI added that once the state system was reformed the government should look at options to overhaul private and workplace pensions.

The think tank’s proposals were made in response to the recent of the Pensions Commission’s initial report into UK retirement savings.

According to the Pensions Commission’s report 12 million working people are not saving enough for their retirement.

As a result, living standards could fall for the next generation of UK pensioners.

The report added that a combination of higher taxes, higher savings and/or a higher average retirement age was needed to solve the UK pension crisis.

News - Pensions Panic: Any Way Out?

jweiss123 — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:48:45 +0000

In the first of a two-part Money Programme special, reporter Michael Robinson reveals what’s gone wrong with Britain’s once world-renowned pension system.

Trevor Matthews, chief executive of pensions at Standard Life, is one of those concerned about what the future holds.

“The prospect is that this generation is not going to enjoy the dignity in retirement that they deserve, they are not going to enjoy a good quality of life in retirement, they’re going to be worrying about every pound they spend,” he said.

At 79.60 a week, Britain’s state pension is one of the lowest in the developed world. For many people, it is just too low to live on, if you don’t even get the full amount.

Rosemarie Brierley, who is 67, gets just 50.22 a week from the state, so despite reaching retirement age, she has to keep on working to make ends meet.

She doesn’t qualify for the full basic state pension of 79.60 because she took time out of the workplace to bring up a family.

To qualify for the full amount, women need to pay National Insurance contributions for 39 years, men for 44 years.

Half of British women don’t qualify for the full basic state pension and Rosemarie thinks this is wrong.

“I worked as hard as any man in this country but , I think it’s a scandal, it’s worse than a scandal it’s disgraceful,” she said.

‘Disgrace’

In 1999, the New Labour government brought in a system of a means tested top-up to the basic state pension, aimed at helping people like Rosemarie who don’t get enough to live on.

Los Albertos’ band members are living for the moment

This can take the basic state pension up to 105 a week for a single person.

But if you have private savings, or income from a private pension, you may not qualify for this and that is Rosemarie’s problem.

She has a small nest egg of 35,000 which she has put away for a rainy day.

This means she doesn’t qualify for much of the top up - only a few pounds a week, and she regrets saving.

“I did save, but it hasn’t done me a bit of good. If I hadn’t saved I’d now have a 105 pounds a week instead of 50.22 a week.”

Difficult choice

One possible fix for the problems can be found on the other side of the world, in New Zealand, where everybody gets a flat rate state pension, based on residence, not contributions and with no means testing.

Tim Herman is not saving for his retirement

But even if all the problems with the state pension system are resolved, there are still a host of pitfalls in the world of private pensions.

The whole system is incredibly complicated. Martin Andrews and his girlfriend Sarah Draper are about to get married and are thinking about getting a pension together in the future, but Sarah doesn’t know where to begin.

“I can’t begin to imagine what kind of pension to choose for the future and what money I’ll need,” she said.

“The government’s not all that clear on it, so how the hell should we know?”

And when they do manage to decide, they’re faced with a whole range of obstacles to getting a good pension at the end of it.

Tough

Charges levied on pension funds by providers over a 30 year period can have a dramatic effect on the size of an individual’s savings.

Pensions expert Dr Ros Altmann has concerns about it.

The charging structure of private pensions is one of the biggest problems that we have to deal with, because you will lose a huge proportion of your capital over the longer term. You can lose up to a third of your capital over 30 years.

Dr Altmann and Mr Robinson bring shocking news

So to encourage us to save more into pension funds, the government spends billions of pounds a year through tax relief.

But most of this ends up subsidising the richest in the land, while offering only modest to the majority of us who need to save the most.

But the toughest thing of all for pension savers is knowing just how much to put away to get a decent pension.

“If you want 10,000 every year, you will need to save around 200,000,” said Ms Altmann.

“So if you want a 20,000 a year pension, somehow from your savings you’ve got to get an amount of about 400,000.”

Not easy for the vast majority of us. So this leaves a stark choice.

We can either rely on a low state pension in retirement, try to stretch to saving several hundred pounds a month into a personal pension or face working long into retirement to deliver an extra income.

Pensions Panic: Any Way Out? will be broadcast on BBC Two on Friday 11 March at 1900.