Spreading the burden of costs will benefit us all
When one of our aged care residents, Pauline, turned 100 in January, she didn’t just get a cake. The Broncos tragic received a visit from Brisbane legends Alfie Langer and Kevin Walters.
It was a visit six months in the planning by our team but it was worth it for the joy and wonderful memories experienced by Pauline and her loved ones.
It’s exactly the sort of “extra mile” care that should be part of every aged care home: the personal touches that come from living in a residential community with staff who know you and treat you like family.
But the truth is, without big changes, that care will be lost.
We all know aged care in Australia has been struggling for years. It’s time to do something about it.
The government has now released the recommendations of the Aged Care Taskforce – a group of 15 experts whose mission was to reassess funding arrangements for aged care and devise a fairer system.
The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety was clear that the engine of aged care, it’s funding model, was broken.
In its report, the commission observed that aged care funding was insufficient, insecure and subject to the fiscal priorities of the day.
Lack of funding stifled innovation, held back both residential and inhome care, and failed to provide the necessary capital to meet the largest growth in demand for aged care places the sector had ever experienced.
The numbers tell the tale. We’re ageing as a country.
Elderly Australians will require 300,000 aged care places by 2030. To meet that demand, the sector will need 80,000 new places and replace 61,000 existing ones.
Things need to change if we want an aged care system that cares about older Australians.
It’s time to stop admiring our problems and start solving them.
Since the introduction of Medicare 40 years ago this year, a social contract has existed between government and the public.
Government will take care of you when you’re sick and – supported by a strong safety net – the individual will look after their own accommodation and daily costs of living.
That’s the deal for most of us, for most of our lives. However, when it comes to the final years of a person’s life, the deal inexplicably changes.
All of a sudden, the government takes care of the entire bill – your care, your accommodation and your daily living expenses.
Today, government picks up the bill for up to 90 per cent of all aged care costs, including accommodation, and caps the amount an individual can contribute to it.
It’s not a progressive system of cost sharing and sits far outside Australian political and policy beliefs.
And as we’ve seen from the parlous state of our aged care system, it’s also not sustainable.
The taskforce believes asking older Australians with means to contribute to their accommodation and daily costs of life – while government remains the majority funder of their care – is fair and meets community expectations.
I don’t know a single aged care provider who would disagree. Striking the same balance of cost sharing for all stages of a person’s life – including those years spent in aged care – will unlock the door to better, higher quality and more sustainable care in the future.
It’s also about fairness. Allowing people with resources to contribute more to their care means we can provide high quality care to more who don’t.
The taskforce’s recommendations support older Australians to live at home for longer, acknowledging that survey after survey shows people want to live as long as they can in their familiar surroundings – with their partners, in the communities they’ve known for decades. The recommendations also enable more capital to flow into the system, encouraging the creation and maintenance of the necessary residential aged care places our community will require in the coming years.
If the government adopts these recommendations, as it should, we will create for ourselves a funding model that gives older Australians independence and choice about their aged care needs; to live and be cared for where they want, whether that’s at home or in a residential community that cares about you.