Elderly people, the Universal Benefit is a flop: only 2,000 beneficiaries out of an expected 25,000
In the face of minimal adherence to the experiment that adds to the accompaniment allowance an allowance of 850 euro to pay for home carers, there is a move towards doubling the Isee to 12 thousand euro in the manoeuvre
The universal benefit introduced to support the very frail elderly in the implementation of the law on non-self-sufficiency has been a flop, at least for the first year: compared to an expected number of 25,000 beneficiaries for each of the two 'test' years, last September less than 5,000 applications had been received, with a rate of acceptance of 41%. In other words, only 2,000 over-80s in ultra-critical conditions are actually benefiting from the measure designed to guarantee them, alongside the accompaniment allowance, an 'assistance cheque' of 850 euros per month, aimed at remunerating the cost of carers who are regularly employed.
The document
The summary data, admittedly provisional but indicative of an experiment that is at a standstill, are contained in the document that the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies drafted in view of the new budget law. In virtue of this adhesion 'considerably lower than the initial estimates made', as stated in the text, the technicians propose for the second year of experimentation to raise the Ise threshold from the current 6,000 to 12,000 euro, so as to 'allow 25,000 applications to be reached by 2026'. At the same time, for this year, they ask that the 250 million allocation that had been put in place be halved to 125 million.
Stringent parameters
The Isee is one of the parameters for access to the Universal Benefit. Parameters that are all extremely rigorous and perhaps it is precisely this element - together with the complex grid of indicators put in place by the 200/2024 decree with which the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies defined the 'very serious welfare need' that skims the audience - that has discouraged the first 25,000 potential applicants from submitting their application, reducing them to a subset of 2,000.
After all, access to the universal 850 euro monthly benefit, claimed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the time as a flagship of the non-self-sufficiency reform (law 33/2023), is riddled with requirements in front of which any non-self-sufficient over-80s with 'very serious care needs' is likely to be discouraged.
The rewritten reform
A disegnare la sperimentazione era stato il maxi-decreto legislativo che di fatto ha riscritto la legge-quadro 33: il Dlgs 29/2024 invece di riformare l’indennità di accompagnamento come previsto in origine ha introdotto la Prestazione universale - indennità di accompagnamento più assegno di assistenza - mettendo in campo 250 milioni l’anno da destinare a 24.510 anziani. Ma per le persone almeno 80enni con bisogno assistenziale gravissimo e Isee non superiore a 6mila euro già titolari di indennità di accompagnamento nonché seguite a domicilio (quindi non in Rsa), la situazione si è ulteriormente complicata: gli indicatori dello stato di bisogno assistenziale gravissimo per l’accesso alla sperimentazione sono quasi “impossibili” da soddisfare. Nel dettaglio: occorre essere persone in condizioni di disabilità gravissima o comunque necessitare di assistenza continua sulle 24 ore la cui interruzione, anche per un periodo molto breve, può portare a complicanze gravi o alla morte. In più, occorr
