The aged care royal commission released its final report on Monday, outlining 148 recommendations as part of an extensive overhaul of the sector.<\/p>\n

Both commissioners \u2013 Lynelle Briggs and Tony Pagone \u2013 recommended some form of levy, but were at loggerheads over how it would function.<\/p>\n

Mr Pagone recommended a Medicare-style levy with funds required to be diverted to the aged care sector.<\/p>\n

Ms Briggs urged the government to introduce a general, 1 per cent \u201caged care improvement levy\u201d, sourced from personal taxable income.<\/p>\n

That would increase Australia\u2019s overall tax revenue, which could be used on aged care.<\/p>\n

That would cost the median person who paid the Medicare levy roughly $610 annually and raise nearly $8b for the aged care centre,\u00a0according to The Sydney Morning Herald<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just under 10 million Australians would pay extra income tax as a result, it reported.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has not ruled out the Medicare-style levy in response to the damning findings.<\/p>\n

Health Minister Greg Hunt refused to commit to either proposal, but said the government\u2019s \u201cformal response\u201d would be revealed in the May budget.<\/p>\n

He said the commissioners disagreed \u201cin good faith\u201d over the levy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is absolutely fine and understandable. This is one of those areas where commissioners presented different views,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday we announced a $452m response with a five-year, five-pillar plan for aged care (which) above all focuses on the needs of individuals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe full formal response to the commission will come during the course of the budget and all of those elements \u2026 will be covered as part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

National Seniors Australia chief advocate Ian Henschke said an increased Medicare levy may be the \u201cquickest way\u201d to pump much-needed money into the aged care sector.<\/p>\n

But he warned safeguards needed to be put in place to ensure the money was not \u201cchewed up\u201d by administration fees.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s just say $5 billion extra aged care and half of that gets goes straight through to the people that are running the care package. Is that worthwhile? No, it\u2019s not,\u201d he told Sky News.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be a forensic analysis of how that money gets through to the care recipient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labor leader Anthony Albanese said the report, which found shocking levels of malnutrition in Australian aged care centres, was an \u201cdamning indictment\u201d on the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it be the people who\u2019ve died waiting for homecare packages or for people who are in residential aged care, what we need is proper funding, we need some real regulation and control, and we need to deal with workforce issues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite clearly, the neglect that is there whereby we have elderly Australians who aren\u2019t getting the right nutrition, who aren\u2019t getting the right care, is an indictment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source: News.com.au<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By:\u00a0Finn McHugh<\/strong><\/p>\n

Australians could be hit with a tax $610 tax hike under a Medicare-style levy proposed to fix the aged care system.<\/p>\n

The aged care royal commission released…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[35],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cruzandco.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cruzandco.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cruzandco.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cruzandco.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cruzandco.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cruzandco.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2138,"href":"https:\/\/cruzandco.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137\/revisions\/2138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cruzandco.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cruzandco.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cruzandco.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}