Comment by Hilben ()

Hilben () — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:15:26 +1000

No funding? For openers, trim the Afgan/Iraq/USA Deputy adventures, get tax from dodgers like FMG (go after the BIG guys for a change), cut the red tape and bureacratic bully numbers in the ATO/ASIC who just complicate lives and build empires, stop propping up companies that can't competer globally (eg Holden). There'll be money enough.
Of course, the politicians and the other parasites in Canberra will keep boosting THEIR supers.
What a mess....

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Comment by John ()

John () — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:50:44 +1000

people don't seem to be able to figure things out. its very simple, the cost of aged care is a given number (it can change every year, but what ever that number is, that's the cost in total). The question becomes one of who pays for it.
Is it the community (via taxes)?
Is it the health funds (via health fund fees)?
is it the poor old person (via user pays)?
Doesn't matter, in total the community pays, its only a matter of how it is shared around.
But the aged care system is part of the health care system.
Why should it be that if my father has dementia and needs care in aged care for years, that he has to pay for it, whereas your mother, who has several heart attacks (the total cost of which is the same as my father's ongoing dementia care) gets her's paid for via the tax system (medicare)????
its all part of the health care system. It is wrong to have the poor "victim" pay for his illness, whether that illness is an acute one (eg heart attack, which the government will pay for in full) or a chronic one (eg dementia - which the government wants the "user" to pay for)
Why should just what illness an old person gets, determine what inheritance the old person's family gets?
The solution? An insurance scheme that EVERY australian pays for, that provides for our aged care IF WE NEED IT.
Like any other insurance policy, we pay for the assurance that its there, not whether we actually use it or not.
In other words, we need some method of collecting this "aged care insurance", the method of which i will leave to others to consider
All i can say, is that when it comes to health care, or aged care, they are all part of the same system, and "user pays" is NOT the appropriate system of paying

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Financial Standard Comments - Govt overhauls aged care

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