[BITList] What next?

[John Feltham]

No Flogging of the Family Home for a Nursing Home: Aged care report unleashes pensioner campaign
Monday, 08 August 2011 14:43
“CPSA sees this report as a declaration of war on the family home. It is a declaration of war on older Australians, their children and their grandchildren,” said CPSA Policy Coordinator Paul Versteege.

“This report abandons aged care as a community service and replaces it with a user pays system funded by flogging the family home.
“Whether, as an older Australian, you will need aged care and how much comes down to luck of the draw and it should not cost the family home to pay for it.

“Older Australians should not allow the Gillard Government to bully them into flogging the family home to pay for aged care.

“CPSA is adamant that forcing people to sell, or borrow against, the home they have slaved to pay off over a lifetime destroys their control over their lives and simply does not go together with the provision of quality care.

“The Productivity Commission has failed to appreciate that, as people age, control over their lives is to a large extent defined by their accommodation and the emotional security and privacy it provides. Making people sell or draw down on the equity in their house is basically telling them: you are on the way out anyway, so hand it all over.

“The Productivity Commission has sought to entrench the institutionalisation of older people needing care and has failed to recognise that properly home-based care schemes have the potential to keep 95 per cent of people who need care out of nursing homes, allowing people’s home equity to remain in their homes.

“Under the Productivity Commission’s proposals, anyone receiving aged care, currently about 650,000 people, will have to pay the full whack and for most people that will mean selling or borrowing against the family home.”

CPSA represents pensioners of all ages, superannuants and low-income retirees. CPSA has 137 Branches and Affiliated Organisations, with a combined membership of 31,000 people.

Media Contact: Paul Versteege, Policy Coordinator
Mobile: 0410 612 182
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