With the countdown on to May’s Federal Budget, the major aged care providers and peak bodies are using the opportunity to back a user pays system – but discussion shows that there is still a need to convince the community.
A story published on the front page of The Australian this week titled ‘Call for wealthy to pay more for aged care’ has seen Catholic Health Australia (CHA), Council on the Ageing Australia (COTA), the Aged & Community Care Providers Association (ACCPA) and StewartBrown all lend their voice to the need for greater consumer contributions from older Australians who can afford to pay.
As discussed below, CHA has recommended for the first time in its pre-Budget submission that the Government raise the means testing threshold on the family home as well as the cap on how much providers can charge for services.
But media coverage around the story made it clear that there is still a need to reframe the conversation around ‘user pays’ for the community.
As CHA notes in its submission, the taxpayer is providing around 75% of the funding for residential aged care – this amounted to $13.4 billion in FY2020 compared to $4.9 billion in consumer contributions.
Yet much of the language is still around ‘Government funding’ of aged care.
Yesterday DCM founder and CEO Chris Baynes and I met with BaptistCare NSW/ACT CEO Charles Moore to discuss a range of points, including the need for greater consumer contributions.
“We absolutely have to create a conversation not just with the politicians but with the community because at the moment the taxpayer is substantially subsidizing our customer,” he said. “Our language is about government funding. But I think the language has to be about government subsidization through the taxpayer of the sector because that brings the taxpayer in as an active investor who should become engaged in this conversation because it’s about the future of a service that they will all need.”
The reality is the Federal Budget has reached the point of no return. The taxpayer base is dwindling and younger generations are being asked to pick up the tab.
While the Government is looking at ways to drive investment in aged care – see last week’s piece about their plan for social impact investing for the sector – funding will never keep pace with the increasing demand for aged care.
The time to change the conversation is now.
Watch out for our story with Charles in the next issue of SATURDAY, out Saturday 18 February.