Notes on the data: Income support

Seniors Health Card holders, June 2023

Policy context: The Commonwealth Seniors Health Card (SHC) entitles older Australians to access cheaper prescription medicines, Australian government funded medical services, and certain other concessions [1]. To qualify for the SHC, a person must have reached Age Pension age but not qualify for a payment from the Department of Human Services (Centrelink) or the Department of Veterans' Affairs; meet an income test (in September 2023, earning no more than the following: $95,400 a year for a single person; $152.640 a year for couples; and $190,800 a year for couples separated by illness, respite care or prison; and be an Australian resident or have a special category visa.

Those receiving this card are, therefore, substantially better off and have better health than those receiving a Pensioner Concession Care (PCC) or a Health Care Card (HCC). For example, the correlation between reporting in the 2021 Census as having three or more long-term health conditions was a very strong 0.7 for those with a PCC, 0.5 for those with a HCC and -0.6 for those with a SHC. The comparable correlation coefficients for those having one or two or more long-term health conditions were, for PCC holders, 0.4 and 0.7, respectively; for HCC holders, 0 and 0.3, respectively; and for SHC holders, -0.1 and -0.5, respectively.

Correlations that are as strong as, or stronger, between these different types of card holders and premature mortality can be seen here, in particular when selecting ‘All Greater Capital City areas’ under ‘Filter to an area’. Other indicators of use of health services, cancer screening and incidence etc. can also be viewed at the link, above.

Reference

Australian Government Department of Human Services (DHS). Commonwealth Seniors Health Card [Internet] [cited 2018 Nov 16]. Available from: https://www.humanservices.gov.au/individuals/services/centrelink/age-pension/eligibility

Notes: The data exclude details of Pensioner Concession Card and Health Care Card holders. Population Health Area (PHA) data were derived from publicly-available data that were already suppressed at the Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2). Therefore, if a PHA included an SA2 with suppressed data, there could be an undercount in the PHA. However, the loss of counts due to the use of this data set was negligible (less than 0.01% lost). State and territory totals were also provided in the source data. Data in the ‘Unknown’ data row in the Excel data workbooks are calculated from the difference between the sum of the PHA data and the State/Territory totals and include the sum of these suppressed SA2 cells. However, the loss of counts due to the use of this data set was negligible (0.01% lost).

The data excludes details of Pensioner Concession Card holders.

Population Health Area (PHA) data were derived from publicly-available data that were already suppressed at the Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2). Therefore, if a PHA included an SA2 with suppressed data, there could be an undercount of up to 4 people in the PHA.

State and territory totals were also provided in the source data. Data in the ‘Unknown’ data row in the Excel data workbooks are calculated from the difference between the sum of the PHA data and the State/Territory totals and include the sum of these suppressed SA2 cells.

Data cells with counts of less than five were suppressed (confidentialised).

Geography: Data available by Population Health Area, Local Government Area, Primary Health Network, Quintile of socioeconomic disadvantage of area and Quintiles within PHNs, and Remoteness Area

Numerator: People in receipt of a Seniors Health Card from the Department of Human Services (Centrelink) at June 2023

Denominator: People aged 65 years and over at June 2022 (population data at June 2023 not available at time of publication)

Detail of analysis: Per cent

Source: Compiled by PHIDU based on data from DSS Payment Demographic Data, June 2023, available from https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/dss-payment-demographic-data, accessed 20 December 2023, and Australian Bureau of Statistics Estimated Resident Population, 30 June 2022.