![]() The real switch didn't get flicked until 2012 when Labor's Aged Care Minister Mark Butler managed to get through the Living Longer Living Better reforms and what he managed to do with what Howard always wanted to do, which was abolish the difference between low and high care and aged care and that meant that nursing home providers could charge whatever accommodation bond they wanted at whatever value the market could bear. I mean we're still talking only, you know, a few billions of dollars which I know is still a lot of money but compared to what it is today, it was way off the mark. I mean investment flew in to the sector after that, but from a very low base. John Howard, building on it a lot of piecemeal programs over the two decades before he got there, decided that he really wanted to open up the sector to more private investment because even back then, which is, you know, more than two decades ago, they could see the writing on the wall when it came to the demographic cliff that the nation was about to fall off in terms of ageing. The modern age care system as we know it now is built upon John Howard and his reforms in 1997. ![]() So Rick, knowing all of that, I get the feeling that this is sort of a story where we should go back to the beginning, which in this case is where, or when? RICK: And we're at a point now where they cannot be allowed to collapse, because there is nowhere to put those people. So, the biggest providers control tens of thousands of beds in nursing homes around the country. RICK MORTON is a senior reporter with The Saturday Paper. That’s right, I mean, we've never been in this position before as a nation and we've now got a kind of a set of events and a set of circumstances from policy to funding to profit that have seen a lot of providers, big and small, skate really close to collapse. Rick, before we get into the details of this story, I just want to clarify the aged care sector is on the edge of a major collapse. “The current system is at best national embarrassment, at worst a national disgrace.” What the peak medical body is saying this is too long, we need action now.” Archival tape - Unidentified Woman 3: “One whistleblower described miserable conditions that she likened to a prison.” Archival tape - Unidentified Woman 2: “The aged care sector has been under scrutiny after a series of scandals, and they have ranged from cost-cutting and staff shortages, to neglect and abuse.” Archival tape - Unidentified Woman 1: Rick Morton on the nursing homes that became too big to fail. Cuts made by Scott Morrison as Treasurer have left half the industry unprofitable and, without reform, they will not be able to continue operating. Major providers in the aged care sector have been propped up by a government bailout. From Schwartz Media, I’m Elizabeth Kulas, this is 7am
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