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Wednesday, 27 October 2021
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To support a better aged care system appropriate to the needs of all Australians, critical changes are needed including a new financing approach. The current system has failed seniors, carers and providers for years.
When someone moves into residential aged care, they are assessed based on their assets and income. An important change is coming on 1 July 2020 that clients and their advisers should understand.
Aged care should not be narrowly defined, as opportunities include home care, granny flats, retirement villages, land lease communities and residential aged care. Take advice and don't rush it.
Aged care measures announced in the Budget go only part of the way to improving the system. With a waiting list for Home Care packages exceeding 100,000, we need more effective change.
Moving to a retirement village is a major event in an elderly person's life. The contract should not be treated casually as the retirement village will impose conditions which the retiree and family should understand.
The primary objective of the aged care reforms starting on 1 July 2014 was to create a better system giving older people more choice, more control and easier access to aged care services. There are unintended consequences.
The final of our series on aged care in Australia covers aged care facilities. More than a third of men and half of women who reach 65 are expected at some point to live in aged care. Understanding the recent reforms is key.
Important changes to aged care costs come into effect on 1 July 2014. They highlight the importance of having the financial flexibility to make the system work in your favour.
Understanding aged care accommodation and the cost is an absolute minefield. The aged care rules are changing on 1 July 2014, and many people have four months to make plans before they are hit by higher costs.
Anyone who has tried to understand the costs of residential aged care knows how complex it is. Here are tips to navigate the aged care minefield.
We tend to forget that house prices often fall. Direct lending controls are more effective than rate rises because macroprudential limits affect the volume of money for housing leaving business rates untouched.
The survey drew a fantastic 2,000 responses with over 1,000 comments and polar opposite views on what is good policy. Do most people believe the home should be in the age pension asset test, and what do they say?
Any policy decision needs to recognise who is affected by a change. It pays to check the data on who pays taxes, who owns assets and who earns the income to ensure an equitable and efficient outcome.
With articles on the pensions assets test read about 40,000 times, 3,500 survey responses and thousands of comments, there was a lot of great reader participation. A few comments added extra insights.
It is hard to think of any area of widespread public concern where the same policies have been pursued for so long, in the face of such incontrovertible evidence that they have failed to achieve their objectives.
There are reasons to believe inflation will stay under control, and although we may see a slowing in the global economy, two companies should benefit from the themes of 'Stable Compounders' and 'Structural Winners'.