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.
Be excellent to each other
Absolutely no ableism. This includes harmful stereotypes: lazy/freeloaders etc
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.
No denialism or minimisation This applies challenges faced by chronically ill people.
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”.
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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.
My buddy's leg is like that for the same reason and goes through the exact same process. Still no leg.
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.
Ok, but these have to be artificial hurdles - a yearly notarized doctors note?
Yeah, if it wasn’t artificial there would be a system to register a disability as impossible to recover from for stuff like loss of body parts.
If he forgets his appointment or can't otherwise make it, it can take weeks if not months for a VA doc to see him and, in the meantime, he could lose his benies for like 6 months.
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
There sure must be lots of people faking having no eyes.
/s
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
I can confirm that it's a fucking terrible process and that they'll use anything they can against you.
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.
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
With our new presidential elect, we might not need to pay them benefits anymore. He could just get rid of them! /s
suicide rate of applicants is pretty high already. incoming administration will only increase it
Putting Dole Up To £1K A Week | Kevin Bridges: A Whole Different Story
That takes balls. That takes balls, George Osborne, Ian Duncan Smith... looking through disabled people's doors: "This is your fucking fault, mate, you. We could go after tax-avoiding multinationals. We could go after Vodafone, Starbucks, Amazon, Google, Gary Barlow, but it is your fucking fault. You."
"You're going back to work, mate. We don't give a fuck how disabled you are. Oh, you're paralysed from the neck down. We don't give a fuck, mate. There will be a farm out there looking for a scarecrow. Fucking go to the farm."
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.
51% seems low