The proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme – what is it and how will it work?

The Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten has referred to the proposed Disability Scheme as the ‘Fifth Pillar’, coming after the introduction of the minimum wage, the age pension, Medicare, and compulsory superannuation.

Instead of providing ‘capped’ funding programs which have been fragmented and variable under different Federal, State, and Local council jurisdictions, the purpose of the scheme would be to assess the risk of disability in the general population, calculate the cost of meeting the essential lifetime needs arising from those disabilities, and then estimate the ongoing taxpayer funded ‘premium’ contribution required to fund those needs into the future. << Read More >>