The Assurance of Support Funding

As many people will know, there is a growing conversation in Australia about a National Disability Insurance Scheme.  Basically, the idea is that the government collects money from citizens through a tax or levy, and this money is then used to pay for the support needed by people living with disability.

There are attractive benefits.  First, as with all good insurance schemes,  the arrangement should be based on a thorough understanding of the likely demand (in other words, the true support costs associated with disability).  This makes it more likely that the allocated funding has a good fit with people's support needs.

Second, people should be able to get certainty about the funding they will receive, and they can get this certainty early, and potentially without hassle, so they can plan for the future.  

Third, like other insurance, the money you get is portable because it is assigned to the person and not to a state, territory or particular service agency, and should therefore go with the person wherever they happen to be Australia (thus removing all the funding anxieties for people living with disability who move interstate).  

Fourth, because the funding arrangement is directly between the government and the person living with disability, the person has much more flexibility about what sort of support arrangements they would like to have in place.  In this way, a national disability insurance scheme is an expression of Individualised Funding.

I pause here to note that, as with all types of Individualised Funding, a national disability insurance scheme will not necessarily deliver to people the lifestyles they seek.  It is simply a means to an end.  So it is vital that people have informed choices so they have the best possible chance of building a supported lifestyle that is valued and part of the rich associational life of their local community. Importantly, this can help reduce any dependency on traditional,technocratic support agency arrangements that congregate people with other people living with disability, as 'passive recipients' excluded from participative citizenship.  

Similarly, it is important that governments and communities don't make the mistake that a national disability insurance scheme is all that is needed to 'fix' disability.  Governments and communities still have a duty to ensure that everything they do is accessible and inclusive, be it education, transportation, buildings, public spaces, employment and so on.

Otherwise there is a higher risk that even with the funding certainties that a national disability insurance scheme can bring, people will still find themselves in lifestyles that are characterised by exclusion rather than inclusion, and where most people around them are paid to be there.

So, mindful of these cautionary points, I welcome the potential of a national disability insurance scheme.  

However, as already evidenced by several recent conversations I have been in, the term 'insurance' can confuse many people.  This is because, for most of us, the term 'insurance' is understood to mean those situations where we pay a premium to cover the risk of something that could happen in the future, for example to our car, our house, or ourselves.  The key phrase here is 'something that could happen in the future'.  Insurers don't tend to give you an insurance policy for something that has already happened. 

So some then ask, 'how can people have disability insurance if they already have their disability?'   This is a fair point.  A comparable scheme in New Zealand does indeed exclude people who already have their disability.  The NZ scheme, called ACC, is a 'no-fault' compensation scheme that protects people against the consequential costs arising from accidents, including accidents that result in lifelong disability.  Through a levy arrangement that applies to all working New Zealanders, funds are collected to cover the costs of accidents, be it a rolled ankle playing netball or quadriplegia as a result of falling off a ladder.

For those New Zealanders acquiring their disability due to an accident, ACC is the main funding source for the cost of their lifelong support needs.  To access this funding support without having to pursue compensation  through the law courts is obviously a big help for people who have a dramatic change in their life as a result of an accident.  But note this funding supporting does not extend to New Zealanders who were born with a disability or who acquired  a disability through a diagnosis such as multiple sclerosis or through an event such as a stroke.

In effect, this creates two classes of New Zealander living with disability - those who got their disability through an accident and who thereby get  insurance-based funding in line with their support needs, and those who were born with a disability (or who acquired it in some way other than an accident)  and whose access to funding support will depend on how much the government chooses to spend on the disability community overall (as is currently the case in Australia).

So the New Zealand scheme is only a partial solution because it is, in essence, a typical insurance scheme that collects premiums to cover the personal impact of accidents yet to happen.

To introduce a similar scheme in Australia , while bringing obvious benefits to some, will create the same disparities and that's the last thing the disability community needs.

Therefore a national disability insurance scheme in Australia,if it is to be fair and effective, must be structured so that it provides funding support to all people living with disability.  It is still an insurance scheme in the sense that it is based on a thorough understanding of the risk and prevalence of disability in Australian society, plus a thorough understanding of the costs of adequate support so that people can get on with valued lives, and where premiums (collected via taxation or levy) are set accordingly.  However, such an arrangement differs from commercial insurance schemes because it brings the assurance of funding support to all Australians living with disability. 

As such, the scheme is perhaps better termed a National Disability Assurance Scheme.  After all, as the Oxford Dictionary defines it, assurance is "a statement or promise designed to give confidence". That sounds about right.  

I therefore encourage you to lend your support to this idea. For more information about the National Disability Insurance Scheme, click here.  And let's remember that such a scheme is not a cure-all.  We still need to push governments and communities to understand the value of diversity, and to recognise and respond to the rights of citizens living with disability.