Wealthier older Australians ‘happy to pay more’ for care: Peak body

Older Australians with means are happy to pay more for their aged care, as long as it’s not lining the pockets of providers, a peak advocacy body has revealed following the introduction of Labor’s aged care bill.

The federal government on Thursday secured the Coalition’s in principle support for legislation that will result in well-off elderly people paying more for their care.

Older Australians with means are happy to pay more for their aged care, as long as it’s not lining the pockets of providers, a peak advocacy body has revealed following the introduction of Labor’s aged care bill.

The federal government on Thursday secured the Coalition’s in principle support for legislation that will result in well-off elderly people paying more for their care, with the total cap on an individual’s lifetime contributions for non-clinical care costs lifted from about $80,000 to $130,000.

Older Persons Advocacy Network chief executive Craig Gear said that of about 2000 people surveyed on the matter, two-thirds said they were willing to pay more “if they can see that they’re going to get quality aged care services and that there’s transparency about where the money is going, so it’s not going to providers’ profit, it’s going to care and to accommodations and living”. “Even my mother herself said ‘I think I should be paying more’,” he said.

Mr Gear said his organisation would conduct analysis over coming months on what the changes meant for different cohorts of people, whether they be fully funded pensioners, part-pensioners or self-funded retirees.

“We’ll be looking to make sure safety nets are adequate and that we’re not going to be ... doing a two-tier system or pushing people into poverty to pay for aged care,” he said. “We don’t want to see a situation where there’s the have and have-nots. Maybe a pensioner might be sitting next to someone that’s paying more for their care ... and that might change things regarding frequency of services or additional services or even the types of meals that latter person can access. We don’t want to see that sort of disparity.”

While the changes are expected to cost an extra $930m over the four-year forward estimates period, over a decade the measures are expected to save the budget bottom line by a net $12.6bn.

Aged Care Minister Anika Wells. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The Council on the Ageing said it had taken the two major parties “too long” to reach agreement, but it was relieved they had “finally got past all the roadblocks” stopping the introduction of the act.

“Parliament now needs to ensure that Australians have adequate time to scrutinise the legislation and provide feedback,” COTA chief executive Patricia Sparrow said.

“COTA Australia will now focus on analysing the detail, speaking to older people about the detail, and making sure the voice of older people is heard throughout the next phase of the process.”

Aged and Community Care Providers Association chief executive Tom Symondson said he was “confident” that the increases in co-contributions were “moderate” and that raising the cap to $130,000 “shouldn’t affect all that many people”.

“Ultimately we have a cap at the moment, it is much lower than that and most people never reach it, because it only applies to the wealthiest ...” he said. “We have people who are in residential aged care and receive their food and their cleaning, those kinds of daily services. Every single person in the country is capped at $62 a day, 85 per cent of the pension. Whether they are only receiving the pension or if they have $20 million in the bank. That’s just not fair.”

St Vincent’s Care Services chief executive Lincoln Hopper said the new bill gave providers “the shot in the arm we’ve need for a long time now. This will make profound changes to the way we’re able to care for older Australians.”

However, Mr Hopper stressed it was important scrutiny was applied to the legislation to ensure “the settings are right” for older people paying more for their care.

“Now that the bill has been tabled, we’ll get to see whether the settings they’re suggesting are right ... and have them adjusted accordingly if needed,” he said.