this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2024
602 points (98.5% liked)

Chronic Illness

238 readers
13 users here now

A community/support group for chronically ill people. While anyone is welcome, our number one priority is keeping this a safe space for chronically ill people.

This is a support group, not a place for people to spout their opinions on disability.

Rules

  1. Be excellent to each other

  2. Absolutely no ableism. This includes harmful stereotypes: lazy/freeloaders etc

  3. No quackery. Does an up-to date major review in a big journal or a major government guideline come to the conclusion you’re claiming is fact? No? Then don’t claim it’s fact. This applies to potential treatments and disease mechanisms.

  4. No denialism or minimisation This applies challenges faced by chronically ill people.

  5. No psychosomatising psychosomatisation is a tool used by insurance companies and governments to blame physical illnesses on mental problems, and thereby saving money by not paying benefits. There is no concrete proof psychosomatic or functional disease exists with the vast majority of historical diagnoses turning out to be biomedical illnesses medicine has not discovered yet. Psychosomatics is rooted in misogyny, and consisted up until very recently of blaming women’s health complaints on “hysteria”.

Did your post/comment get removed? Before arguing with moderators consider that the goal of this community is to provide a safe space for people suffering from chronic illness. Moderation may be heavy handed at times. If you don’t like that, find or create another community that prioritises something else.

founded 4 months ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

Give disabled people who are unable to work a survivable wage

Hilarious. Ha ha ha. As if.

Society was already hostile towards the disabled. Just wait to see how much worse it's going to get.

I'm not looking forward to it.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Well, if you cant work you are a shame (and a traitor) for the Working class as Serving the rich would normally be your one and only job. /s

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago (3 children)

With our new presidential elect, we might not need to pay them benefits anymore. He could just get rid of them! /s

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 102 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Buddy of mine has no eyes. Has to get reevaluated every year. Still doesn't have eyes. Probably won't next year, let's check just to be sure

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 days ago

There sure must be lots of people faking having no eyes.

/s

[–] [email protected] 114 points 3 days ago (5 children)

A buddy of mine was injured by an IED in Afghanistan, he lost his right eye. Every year he goes to the VA for his regular checkup and the doctor has to sign some paperwork that he then needs to get notarized. Social Security says they need all that to make sure he's still disabled... you know, checking that he hasn't spontaneously regrown an eyeball miraculously and would then be cheating the system I guess. Our benefit system for disabled people is really fucking broken.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The cost of this and thousands of other pointless assessments by qualified medical professionals probably costs more than people receive in benefits in the first place let alone the cost of a handful of cases of actual fraud.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 days ago

My buddy's leg is like that for the same reason and goes through the exact same process. Still no leg.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 days ago (1 children)

All these government benefits programs are ready to deny 100 valid people benefits if it means they stop one instance of fraud. Because only the one instance of fraud gets attention in the corporate media.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (2 children)

All these government benefits programs are ready to deny 100 valid people benefits if it means they stop one instance of fraud.

That's my criticism of conservatives obsessing and crusading over welfare fraud. Sure, fraud happens, what system is fool proof? But conservatives make it as though it is prevalent when statistics show that it's not (I don't know about the US but in UK welfare fraud is statistically not a big of an issue as it is made out to be). I met a guy who is nice and intelligent, and a conservative based from the views he espoused during the conversation, but he obsess over welfare fraud like many conservatives. Just because he personally saw few instances of fraud, he makes it as though it is a pervasive issue.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

worst thing is a lot of their “personal experiences” with fraud are pure bullshit.

They don’t try to empathise or understand someone who’se disabled. They see their neighbour get out their wheelchair and walk a few steps once and then decide “he’s a frauster”. Never mind that a large chunk of wheelchair bound people have the ability leave their chairs and stand up for short periods of time. They just can’t do it regularly or with any consistency. Or doing it worsens their underlying conditions.

But never mind, the conservative genius saw them leave their wheelchair once so now since he never has faced disability and his view is based on simplified steorotypes, thinks the person is faking.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah, if they didn't you would have more people apply for disability payments instead of being a profit center for financing corps.

[–] shadowedcross 22 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I can confirm that it's a fucking terrible process and that they'll use anything they can against you.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Just a reminder, we spend more preventing welfare fraud than we save by preventing fraud. We could just give cash away on the honor system to everyone who asks for it, and we would save money.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

We could also house the homeless for less than it would cost to punish them for being homeless.

We could feed the world on what we throw away in the US.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Funny how it changed from ‘liveable wage’ to ‘survivable wage’

[–] [email protected] 51 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I would go further, especially considering the context:

Give people a survivable wage.

Regardless of whether they can work or not. People's survival should not be contingent on working. Give people what they need to survive as a baseline, and then if they want to work for more, they can negotiate for employment on equal terms.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Even if a universal basic income makes things more expensive, it will make things more expensive by less than the amount that average people will benefit from it. It also reduces economic inequality.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Universal basic income (like a bigger one than you are probably thinking), universal healthcare, eliminate most other welfare programs (UBI filling that role in place of things like SNAP and TANF, the remaining ones should be narrowly targeted and temporary - think WIC), institute a maximum wage (highest compensated person in a company can make no more than X% of the least compensated and Y% of the median compensated employee - makes it so that for executives to get a raise that rising tide has to lift every boat).

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 60 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I was turned down with genitofemoral neuropathy because the government insists on record of ongoing treatment. The only continuous treatment for nerve damage is pain management, and I can’t take opiates.

I’ve paid into Social Security for 25 years, yet I can’t access my own money when I’m in desperate need of it. Fuck this system.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This sounds silly, but could you fill your opiate prescription and just toss the pills? Maybe you can find a doctor willing to record your ongoing treatment as whatever works for you.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

The disability attorneys I’ve spoken with say it’s a double-edged sword. The government is also reluctant to support indefinite opiate treatment (with good reason). They said I’d have better luck applying for SSI citing the psychological effects from the pain rather than applying for SSD for the disability itself.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 days ago (1 children)

suicide rate of applicants is pretty high already. incoming administration will only increase it

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 39 points 3 days ago
load more comments
view more: next ›