Five years after the idea of a national disability scheme was raised, DisabilityCare Australia has been launched in a number of trial sites around the country.
The Federal Government says the scheme will give people with disabilities greater choice and control over what treatment, equipment and support services they receive.
But despite the scheme receiving bipartisan political support at a federal level, there are concerns.
Thea Cowie reports.
To an enthusiastic round of applause, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has officially launched DisabilityCare Australia in Newcastle, New South Wales.
Mr Rudd says the scheme is about ensuring people with a disability have the same opportunities as other Australians.
"Why should they be any different to any other Australian? They're part of our family. And because they are part of our national family, we've got a job to do, which is to make sure we're out there with an arm around folks to make sure that their futures are good, that they can live lives full to overflowing with their potential."
Newcastle, along with Geelong, Adelaide, Devonport, Launceston and Hobart, will act as a trial site for the nation's new disability insurance scheme.
The trials are intended to benefit 26,000 people living with disabilities.
DisabilityCare, formerly known as the National Disability Insurance Scheme, is an idea that came out of the 2008 Labor government's 20-20 summits.
The Government says the scheme will cover Australians under age 65 in the event of significant disability.
And it is designed to give people greater control over the care and support they receive over their entire lifetime.
Lynne Foreman, living with a disability in Victoria, is set to be one of the first Australians to benefit from the scheme.
She says it will give her much more flexibility in life.
"Basically, the way the system is at the moment, it's all state-funded. And I guess with this new scheme, it's going to be national, so everybody's on the one page. It means you could travel interstate if you wanted to, or even move interstate. At the moment, the way the system is, we can't move interstate. Well, we can -- sorry -- but we can't take our funding with us. So we've got to start from scratch again."
The Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory schemes begin in 2014, with Queensland set for July 2016.
But it will cost 19.3 billion dollars and take about seven years before the scheme reaches all 410,000 people with a disability believed to be eligible.
Disability Reform Minister Jenny Macklin has told the ABC the reason for the wait is disability-care resources need to double.
"That means a lot of extra staff are needed, a lot of extra equipment is needed, home modifications ... all the things that people need -- respite ... This can't be delivered in one day. And I think, if we do it properly, people will have much, much more confidence than if we make commitments that, of course, people know aren't realistic."
The executive director of Disability and Domiciliary Care in South Australia, Lynne Young, says it will be worth the wait.
"For people to have control, to be able to manage their own lives, is an amazing difference from what most people are feeling now. So that feeling of self-determination, that feeling of hope, that feeling of dignity, being able to make mistakes and then being able to choose something else based on that experience, I think, is incredibly powerful."
The national disability scheme has enjoyed bipartisan political support at a federal level, and all states and territories except Western Australia have now signed up.
But one of the architects of Britain's disability scheme has some criticisms of Australia's plan.
Dr Simon Duffy is director of Britain's Centre for Welfare Reform, and he developed that country's disability scheme, which is somewhat similar to Australia's.
Dr Duffy has told the ABC Australia's scheme may be too bureaucratic.
"I have some concerns that, if you get too much bureaucracy in the planning processes, in the organisation, you'll kill innovation in people's lives, you'll kill people's opportunity to really use their budgets flexibly. And that's happened in other places in the world. Even when people start with good intentions, the bureaucracy creeps in and stifles change."
Dr Duffy says people in the industry are also concerned the DisabilityCare model could overly complicate people's lives and introduce unnecessary costs.
"They're saying, 'We're very happy to take on the responsibilities of citizenship, the responsibilities of managing the budget, but don't design a system in such a way that those responsibilities are two, three, four, five times more complicated than what other ordinary citizens would face.' I think, in some of the early things I saw come out, I certainly was worried that there's a tendency to over-complicate planning, over-complicate financial administration and then create costs and burdens for families that make the whole thing more difficult."
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