The person with the power to decide how to make the aged care industry sustainable over the long term is Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who hands down his budget on May 14, six weeks before the new Aged Care Act is due to start.
If nothing changes, this trend will continue as Australians continue to live longer. The effects will be twofold: there will be fewer aged care facilities to care for many more older Australians; and, facilities will reduce the quality of services they provide. Many retirees maintain that their superannuation should not be used to fund their aged care. They say that aged care should be funded by the government. There is no good reason why this should be the case, just as there is no good reason why today’s workers should fund aged care for older Australians who have accumulated those generous superannuation savings.
Care, which is covered by resident’s means-tested care fee. Private contributions are used to offset government funding. some popular inner-city aged care facilities, is essentially an interest-free loan to a facility, which is returned to the resident, or the resident’s family, upon departure or death.There are strict rules about the purposes for which aged care facilities can use RADs, and income from holding RADs naturally decreases as interest rates drop.