The Government will today reveal its long awaited plan to stop pensioners using up their life savings to pay for residential care.
Nearly 20,000 people a year are forced to sell their homes to pay for a care home. Councils will only step in when the value of savings and assets falls below £23,250.
But it is expected that the reforms will raise the threshold for means testing and set a cap on how much families will have to contribute before the state steps in.
Age UK said the Government's social care white paper and draft bill were a "once in a generation opportunity" to improve care so that it is fairly funded.
Charity spokeswoman Elizabeth Feltoe told Sky News: "We would like the Government to agree to a cap on social care costs so you and I would only need to spend around £35,000 of our own wealth or income on care.
"We would also like the government to introduce a new means test threshold of £100,000.
"That protects people from using all of their assets to pay for their care."
Pauline Turner was forced by her local council to sell her mother's bungalow to pay for care bills that have climbed to £96,000 in less than five years.
And to make matters worse, her £50-a-week pension credit was stopped because her savings increased after the sale.
She said: "The Government are saying to us 'Be thrifty, look after yourself, work hard and you will get rewarded'. Why should I be thrifty or why should my mother have been thrifty because she has lost everything she ever worked for. So why do we bother?
"The Government is sending out confusing messages here."
According to Age UK , there was a £500m shortfall in local authority funded social care last year, and councils are cutting back further to save money.
Some will only pay to care for the most severely disabled adults. And others have cut home help for daily tasks such as washing and dressing.
The long awaited social care reforms are expected to oblige councils in England to offer basic help to frail or disabled adults to end the so called postcode lottery in services.
But the reforms are likely to cost £1.7bn a year at first. And that will soar as the population ages.
Charities fear the Government will delay a decision over how to fund the reforms until the next Treasury spending review in 2013.
Saga, the over-50s campaign group, said the fiscal deficit was no excuse for not spending more on care.
