Aged Care Minister Anika Wells says taxpayers can be confident the Albanese government has carefully designed its $5.6 billion aged care package to lift the standard of care in the sector. The package includes a $4.3 billion investment in Support at Home, changes to improve the funding, viability of residential aged care, and ‘a no worse off’ principle that will provide certainty to those already in aged care. The package does not contain any changes to the treatment of the family home.
As a result of the changes, the wealthiest retirees will pay up to $13,400 a year extra for residential care under a user-pays overhaul of the funding system. Wells said the Albanese government “needed to do something drastic” in response to the “horror stories” that came out of the Royal Commission into Aged Care. “We’ve sequenced this very carefully. We thought very carefully about this,” she said on Sky News.