Medicare levy hike to fund NDIS would cost less than a coffee a day
FOR just a dollar a day, you could insure you and your family against the threat of serious disability. I mean, I've paid more for a cup of coffee.
Jessica Marszalek, National Political Reporter
News Corp Australia NetworkMay 1, 20137:47pm
Now that's a coffee.Source:HeraldSun
FOR just a dollar a day, you could insure you and your family against the threat of serious disability.
I mean, I've paid more for a cup of coffee.
It could be a line from one of those annoying insurance ads on daytime TV.
But this is the basic plug Julia Gillard has put to voters in announcing her new plan to fund half of DisabilityCare, or what's until now been known as the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
Under a 0.5 per cent hike to the Medicare levy, a worker on an average $70,000 wage will pay an extra 96 cents a day towards a safety net for the 410,000 Australians with a permanent disability.
A family earning $100,000 a year will for out $500 extra, families on $150,000 will contribute $750 a year and $200,000 earners will pay $1000 so those less fortunate can afford support like respite, equipment such as wheelchairs, and help to manage their living arrangements.
The hike will raise $3.3 billion in the first year, and $20.4 billion between 2014-15 and 2018-19, when the full scheme comes into place.
The rest of the money needed will need to come from budget savings.
Money will go into a special fund quarantined for DisabilityCare, and states will still have to chip in.
Taxes are always hard to sell - but the Prime Minister's argument is a strong one.
We pay car insurance, phone insurance, home insurance, pet insurance, superannuation, life insurance and even funeral insurance so that us and our families are not caught out.
Under Labor's plan, we'll pay insurance to guard ourselves against the prospect of disability.
It's overwhelmingly accepted that the current system is not fair.
Labor has called it a ''cruel lottery''.
A person's level of care right now depends on how their injury was acquired, where they live, their own capacity to pay and whether support services around them can provide what they want or need.
A person who is disabled in a car crash will get help under third-party insurance.
A person who falls off their roof at home is on their own.
What the Government wants us to consider is what we'd do if us or a loved one were in a terrible, debilitating accident.
What if our child needed lifelong care?
That's what people will be asked to consider in the poll booths come September, with a Gillard Government maintaining a levy hike is the only way to pay for this national safety net.
The plan is an about-face after Ms Gillard last year ruled out extra taxes or levies to pay for the scheme.
Her change-of-heart comes down to three things: a $12 billion shortfall in expected government revenues, the pressures on state budgets and for the security of long-term funding.
Equated to the creation of the Medicare universal health care system in 1994, agreement on a full DisabilityCare rollout has already been reached with NSW, South Australia and the ACT and for launch sites in Victoria, Tasmania and the NT.
Discussions are continuing with other states and territories, with Queensland supportive of Ms Gillard's levy plan.
Disability advocates argue funding the scheme from a levy rather than from consolidated revenue would shield it from the budget and election cycle, giving more certainty to those who rely on it.
The Opposition supports the NDIS, but continues to raise questions around how it will be paid for.
Asked if he supported a Medicare levy rise, Leader Tony Abbott said: ''I support a responsibly funded scheme . . . but (a levy) is only half funding the scheme.''
He wants Ms Gillard's entire funding plan now, even though the Government argues it has time to make savings before the scheme comes into full effect in five years.
Some, including former treasurer Peter Costello, have argued the scheme should wait for better days, when there is more money.
But disabled people have struggled for years, including through consecutive budget surpluses.
This wait is real-life stuff for so many families.
It's the difference between a quadraplegic young person being able to live on their own, go to university, or get a job.
It's the difference between an intellectually-impaired teenager remaining in a too-small wheelchair while his parents rely on community fundraising to buy a new one.
It's the difference between being able to work part time, or take a holiday in between caring for your ageing mother.
And it's about dignity.
Is it fair they keep waiting now when there has been such universal acknowledgement that a fairer system is needed?
And if we did wait, when would be the right time to act?
Should an NDIS begin when the budget is forecast to return to the black?
And what happens if that forecast is pushed forward, as has happened by this Government amidst continued falling revenue.
Ms Gillard has challenged Mr Abbott to put his funding plan on the table, if he has a better one.
She has warned a vote for Labor or a vote for the Coalition will mean different decision are taken, indicating she's comfortable for the election to be a referendum on which major party can properly fund DisabilityCare.
Voters in the poll booths may well have to decide how much they're willing to pay to help out a neighbour in trouble, and whether their own piece of mind is worth a dollar a day.
Originally published asIs peace of mind worth a dollar a day?
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