Super-style plan needed for aged care
Superannuation-style saving plans should be set up to fund aged care as the number of older Australians is expected to double by 2050, a seniors group says.
National Seniors Australia (NSA) chief executive, Michael O’Neill, told the National Press Club that higher taxes alone would be an unsustainable way to fund housing for an ageing population.
He advocated a superannuation-style approach to funding aged care.
“Given the shift in population size that is occurring, it will be inevitable that people are expected to, if they have the capacity, to fund more of their own aged care,” he said.
Greying baby boomers were also more prepared to pay for their aged care so they had more consumer choice.
He pointed to figures forecasting the number of Australians, aged 65 to 84, doubling by 2050 as the number of people over 85 quadrupled.
During the same period, the proportion of working-age Australians for everyone aged over 65 was expected to fall from five at present to 2.7.
More than quarter of the Australian government budget is presently dedicated to health, aged care and age-related pensions.
As the proportion of Australians grows, Mr O’Neill said aged care homes would become more important.
Stressing the word “homes” rather than “facilities”, he said accommodation for older Australians was just as important as local schools, courthouses and the $43 billion national broadband network.
“Packing them up and sending them 400 kilometers or 500 kilometers to the coast to be in an aged care home is no answer to those people or for that community,” Mr O’Neill said.
“Aged care is as important as broadband in that sense.”
With the pension age set to rise to 67 by 2023, Mr O’Neill said age discrimination in the workplace needed to be tackled now so Australians could afford to retire.
