This financial year, severely overweight people without another primary disability cost the National Disability Insurance Scheme millions more.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme would spend more than $4.5 million in the 2020-21 financial year due to severely overweight people who do not have any other primary disability.

NDIS Minister Linda Reynolds stated that 21 active participants with an NDIS plan indicated obesity as their primary disability as of June 30 in response to a parliamentary question regarding obesity being covered by the scheme.

Senator Reynolds estimated that these proposals would cost the program $4,576,802 in the 2020-21 fiscal year. That is an increase from 2019-20 when the NDIS spent $2.4 million on 18 obese people with no other primary disability.

Senator Reynolds said in August that the elderly, autistic, and obese were contributing to the NDIS’s “unsustainable” cost increase, claiming that the scheme was “never intended” to serve every Australian with a disability.

She added that the NDIS was created for people with the most severe and long-term disabilities to provide them with the support they need to live as independently as possible. However, eligibility in terms of who may participate in the scheme is still unclear.

Obesity is included as a condition in the NDIS system’s list of primary disabilities, which is based on the World Health Organization’s International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems.

Senator Reynolds said that NDIS payments were not intended to help manage or avoid medical issues associated with obesity but rather to assist with the condition’s functional effects.

On Friday, the NDIS issued its annual Financial Sustainability Report, emphasizing that the scheme’s costs increased considerably faster than expected.

According to the report, projections of future members in the program by 2030 are substantially greater than the number predicted by the Productivity Commission in 2017.

Senator Reynolds’ office stated that people were joining in the scheme in larger numbers and exiting in smaller numbers than predicted.