Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I don't know that that was the question I asked. Why don't I paint you a picture. Imagine there's a self-managed person who decides they want to get their lawns mown, their house cleaned or whatever and a person who has their package managed through a provider. On the basis of a uniform price for a service, which is determined by IHACPA, the self-managed person will pay the same price as the other person, but the person with a provider will be paying for the administrative costs. The first person will have to do their own administration because they're self-managing, and yet the price will be the same.

I'm trying to understand the fairness of incorporating package management costs into the price of a service. Does that not then put the person who is self-managing at a significant disadvantage? If it's at 15 per cent—which is currently what it is—in effect, we're saying that the person who's self-managed will be paying a 15 per cent higher cost for their service than the person on a provider managed package.