The Productivity Commission is releasing its [url=http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/inquiry/disability-support/draft]draft report on Disability Care and Support[/url].
There are 2.5 million unpaid carers in Australia.
Australian governments commit approximately $20billion a year to the disability welfare system of which about $8billion is payments to community care and support providers. Nearly $3billion is paid to family and other informal carers.The bulk of the remainder (about $9billion) is paid in income support for more than 700000 Australians with a work incapacity through the Disability Support Pension.
The solution according to disability advocates is an NDIS giving people with severe or profound disabilities lifetime care and support. It’s a social insurance system that assesses the risk of disability in the general population calculates the cost of meeting the essential lifetime needs of the disabled and determines the premium required from taxpayers to meet those needs. It shifts away from the present welfare model by encouraging the insurer to find ways to get people off the scheme through early intervention as well as longer-term job-training and education schemes. The annual cost to the average wage earner would be $400 a year. If a levy were imposed t pay for the NDIS it would likely add about 0.8% to the current 1.5% Medicare impost.
In 2009 the national bill for disability care and support aids and appliances transport and home modifications ran to about $10.9billion with governments stumping up about $5.6billion.
An NDIS could lead to long-term saving and by the middle of the century it could be paying for half the nation’s community and residential aged care bill.