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22 January 2025
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The Government has finally released the Aged Care Taskforce Report which contains 23 recommendations to reform home care and residential aged care. The report pinpoints who should pay for the increasing cost of aged care.
The costs of aged care will only continue to increase as the Baby Boomer generation moves into their frailty years, increasing not only the demand for services but also higher consumer expectations around the quality of service.
To support a better aged care system appropriate to the needs of all Australians, critical changes are needed including a new financing approach. The current system has failed seniors, carers and providers for years.
When someone moves into residential aged care, they are assessed based on their assets and income. An important change is coming on 1 July 2020 that clients and their advisers should understand.
Aged care should not be narrowly defined, as opportunities include home care, granny flats, retirement villages, land lease communities and residential aged care. Take advice and don't rush it.
Aged care measures announced in the Budget go only part of the way to improving the system. With a waiting list for Home Care packages exceeding 100,000, we need more effective change.
Moving to a retirement village is a major event in an elderly person's life. The contract should not be treated casually as the retirement village will impose conditions which the retiree and family should understand.
The primary objective of the aged care reforms starting on 1 July 2014 was to create a better system giving older people more choice, more control and easier access to aged care services. There are unintended consequences.
The final of our series on aged care in Australia covers aged care facilities. More than a third of men and half of women who reach 65 are expected at some point to live in aged care. Understanding the recent reforms is key.
Important changes to aged care costs come into effect on 1 July 2014. They highlight the importance of having the financial flexibility to make the system work in your favour.
Understanding aged care accommodation and the cost is an absolute minefield. The aged care rules are changing on 1 July 2014, and many people have four months to make plans before they are hit by higher costs.
Anyone who has tried to understand the costs of residential aged care knows how complex it is. Here are tips to navigate the aged care minefield.
Last year, I wrote an article suggesting returns from ASX stocks would trample those from housing over the next decade. One year later, this is an update on how that forecast is going and what's changed since.
The housing market was subdued in 2024, and pessimism abounds as we start the new year. 2025 is likely to be a tale of two halves, with interest rate cuts fuelling a resurgence in buyer demand in the second half of the year.
This examines the performance of key asset classes and sub-sectors in 2024 and over longer timeframes, and the lessons that can be drawn for constructing an investment portfolio for the next decade.
The renowned investor has penned his first investor letter for 2025 and it’s a ripper. He runs through what bubbles are, which ones he’s experienced, and whether today’s markets qualify as the third major bubble of this century.
Key lessons include expensive stocks can always get more expensive, Bitcoin is our tulip mania, follow the smart money, the young are coming with pitchforks on housing, and the importance of staying invested.
Check out the most-read Firstlinks articles from 2024. From '16 ASX stocks to buy and hold forever', to 'The best strategy to build income for life', and 'Where baby boomer wealth will end up', there's something for all.