'Left feeling like a burden': How the government's new NDIS changes may impact you

An overhaul of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has passed the Senate with Coalition support, sent back to the Labor-controlled lower house to be rubber-stamped.

Analysis by the Grattan Institute suggests hundreds of thousands of people will be moved off the scheme or prevented from joining under the changes.

Applicants will be assessed in stages under a new test to determine their functional capacity.

That test is still being developed and will replace the current diagnosis-based model.

Acting CEO of peak body People With Disability Australia Megan Spindler-Smith says her community is grieving.

Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.

"There will be harm, there will be injuries. What we're talking about here is that when you reduce people's access to the supports that they need to be able to get out of bed, access the community, go to work, you ostensibly isolate people."

She says many lives will be made smaller by the reforms — which will slash social and community participation supports in half.

"The support needs don't go away when the funding is cut or when the supports are removed. They just get pushed onto either systems or other people, and that means isolation."

Since it started in 2013, the cost of the scheme has ballooned, rising to $50 billion dollars this year, and projected to hit $100 billion within a decade.

The government says its overhaul will slow the scheme’s growth and save almost $38 billion over the next four years.

Greens MPs like Jordon Steele-John say the focus on financial cost has made many disabled people feel like a burden.

“Many people, during the course of this debate, while the government has been trying to push this legislation through, have shared with me that they have felt as though they are being talked about in a way that leaves them feeling like a burden, and that is just not okay.”

Health Minister Mark Butler says reining in spending growth was necessary to safeguard the scheme's financial sustainability and social license.