Pensions and care funding

There's an article in The Guardian today (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/16/death-retirement-striking-lecturers-pensions) that has a very one-sided, 'elite' view of the pension reforms that have taken place since the 1980s. It complains about the death of defined benefit pensions and how defined contribution pensions aren't as good.

A key point that the author misses is that what is 'good' is subjective; he also fails to mention that, with DC schemes, there is much more of a need for the individual to understand how pensions work.

You may pay into a defined benefit pension for 50 years (yes, some of us started work at 15 - not something many of today's snowflake generation would seemingly consider!), pay in a hundred thousand or so in your own contributions, get a supposedly generous pension of £8K or so per annum, and die after two years. You don't get your money back.

What's more, you can't dip into a defined benefit pension to fund short term emergencies - like care.  Viv has had carers for a year or so, the costs have varied but have at times been as much as £2500 per month.  We've been able to fund that by drawdown from our defined contribution pension pot.

If Viv and I had only defined benefit pensions we'd have been dependent upon council funding for her care. This has two disadvantages: 1) it adds to the council adult social care bill and 2) if your care is funded you have much less flexibility about what you can get your carers to do for you - you have to do what Social Services say. For instance, we've had carers helping with rehab, which would not be funded by social services.

I don't know about everyone, but the last thing we want is some busy body from the council coming in and telling us what we can and can't do. Our pensions are our money, we're spending them sensibly (yes, we have enough to see us beyond 80, and have consulted a Financial Advisor) and we want care that suits us. The pensions reforms of recent years have helped us achieve this.

Surely using personal pension funds to fund care is better than the state having to pick up the tab? Is it not just another case of 'the elite' telling us plebs we can't be trusted and don't understand what we're doing (as with Brexit) when in fact we know perfectly well and have things wholly under control.

My own view as to the problem with pensions is that people aren't paying in enough when they're young - you need 40 years at least to build up a pension, and many today don't seem to realise the importance of that. I learnt it at University - oddly enough, the same university at which the author of the above article is a lecturer. I wonder if they still explain the effects of compound growth to their students?