Aged care shortage looms as funding crisis worsens

A funding crisis is tipped to leave older Australians without thousands of aged care places over the next five years, building pressure on Labor and the Coalition to strike a deal on a new regime. Source: The Age. 

The shortage could leave the sector without 21,200 beds as residential aged care operators warn of financial pressures that will force them to close more homes than they build.

A political impasse is also delaying a deal on federal funding for more Home Care plans that support older Australians to stay in their homes amid frustration that people can wait six months or more for the packages to be approved.

Aged care providers say they lost $5 billion over the past five years and will lose even more unless Labor and the Coalition agree within weeks to act on the findings of a damning royal commission into the sector three years ago.

A federal government aged care taskforce warned last year that the sector would need a $37 billion investment boost by 2050 to build enough places and services, but Labor and the Coalition could not reach a deal on the reforms in parliament last week despite intense negotiations.

The changes being negotiated in Parliament, but which have not been publicly released, include funding changes to expect Australians with more assets to pay a greater share of their everyday costs, but not for nursing and clinical care.

The industry estimates that someone on the full pension would pay $62 per day and the federal government would add about $10 to that, but providers would still lose money at least $10 per person per day and sometimes three times that amount.

Council on the Ageing chief Patricia Sparrow said the new laws needed to pass this year to give all sides a better system to address shortages and act on the findings of the royal commission.

With Parliament due to resume on September 9, the industry wants Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to seal an agreement early in that week, allowing enough time for a Senate inquiry to iron out any problems so the law could be passed by the end of the year.

FULL STORY

Baby Boomers face aged care bed shortages as funding crisis worsens (By David Crowe, The Age)