Politicians are, generally, practical folk. They steered clear of this issue before, on the whole, because we couldn't afford a solution. The more you spend on medical care, the longer people live, the more you have to spend on social care for folk who tend to need more medical care. The more you spend, the more you have to spend.
At the moment the economy's in Cinderella mode, stumbling around in an awkward dance to the rhythmic sound of the magic money tree being beaten like a pecuniary piñata. But the clock's going to strike midnight soon. Glass slippers are going to get smashed, not just left behind, and the economy's going to look like last year's pumpkin.
It's time to batten down the hatches and wait for the storm to hit, not get optimistic about anything getting solved. If things only stay as bad as they were before it will be a major, major achievement. Unless, of course, I'm doing the pessimist thing again and Rishi Sunak is a dab hand with the superglue and pumpkin soup recipes. I don't think Goldman Sachs train them for that kind of thing though.
Having said that, leeching money off the core economy is something the investment banks are great at, and we may have to turn back to blood-letting, trepanning and tying our teeth to the doorknob again to save the NHS money. So maybe they'll be able to teach politicians a few tricks?
The silver lining to all this is that so many folk will be underemployed that they'll have more time to help care for family members. That's the way the world works... the poorer the nation, the better the family care. Because there's no choice.
I now choose to forget I wrote this miserable post and will go sneak out into the garden and see if 'our' hedgehog's there again. Life goes on, whatever happens in the messy human world.