Australia needs a strong aged care sector. It's funding needs to be reconsidered from first principals.
No one would argue that the poor need a dignified retirement nor that those who can afford to pay their own costs shouldn't. Where these two concepts intersect is difficult.
If the same service is offered to those who pay their own way and those who don't then there is a perverse incentive not to save for one's old age. Better to blow one's earnings on cigarettes, Bali holidays and jet skis, then rely on the government. Perhaps that's the way of the true blue Aussie.
The unpalatable alternative is that those who contribute to their own retirement gain a higher level of service, but that offends our egalitarian values.
