Disabilities and Elegibility for Benefits.

[RootedPhoenix]

This was inspired by a tangent that showed on this thread over at Customers Suck!.

http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=41115

Basically, the idea was that it was terrible that there were people out there (not necessarily the guy in the OP) who were getting money from the government without doing much. On the other hand, you had genuinely disabled people who needed the help and couldn't get it because someone figured they weren't disabled enough.

It reminded me of all the times I needed help and couldn't get it. It still happens.

I'm disabled, but not in any glaringly visible way. ADD doesn't need a wheelchair. ADD doesn't mean I have the IQ of shoe polish, either.

Has anyone else run into the attitude that only certain disabilities "count"?

[smileyeagle1021]

I'm mixed on that one... with your specific example I'd say with the ease of treating ADD that it shouldn't be grounds for disability payments (maybe treatment assistence, but not full disability).

now, onto my opinion on certain disabilities not counting, I think there is a lot that is counting that doesn't necassarily have to be counted. There is no reason why someone missing a leg can't get a desk job/ work in a call center/ etc... there's no reason someone with a speech impediment can't do wharehouse work or respond to emails (actually, I have a slight speech impediment and I was still able to work in a call center...) On the flip side I do understand people who don't have obvious disabilities getting turned down being upset... sadly I think they are turned down because there are so many people with disabilities that don't need assistance from the government getting it and not only draining the available funds but attaching a stigma to those with less obvious disabilities getting payments.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I know this is opening a can of worms, but what about morbidly obese people being classified as disabled? A disability seems to suggest something beyond that person's control which is preventing them from leading a normal life, but no-one forced the food down these people's throats. Plus, if they dieted/exercised and changed their lifestyle, they certainly are capable of losing weight. A bit difference from someone who's lost a leg or a person who has a severe mental illness.

[Flyndaran]

I know this is opening a can of worms, but what about morbidly obese people being classified as disabled? A disability seems to suggest something beyond that person's control which is preventing them from leading a normal life, but no-one forced the food down these people's throats. Plus, if they dieted/exercised and changed their lifestyle, they certainly are capable of losing weight. A bit difference from someone who's lost a leg or a person who has a severe mental illness.

Ahh, but my girlfriend is obese, but really does eat FAR less and works
FAR more than I do. It's much less her fault than a drug addiction would be if her own parents started her on it. Which is what food is to the obese; a drug. I'm fat, because I love food and am somewhat lazy. I know I can be skinny, because I was once skinny. She, on the other hand, has never been skinny, and might die before she could get skinny even with a gun to her head.
If that isn't a disability then I don't what is. Even so, she works at her crap job harder than anyone else I've ever met, so screw anyone that says her weight is "her own fault".

[Boozy]

*Disclaimer - My information is based on the Canadian system, and I am by no means an expert on the Canadian disabiity benefits program*

My problem with disability benefits is that they are based on the job you had when you received your injury/diagnosis. And they are paid out in perpetuity as long as you can prove that a) you can't return to work in your field, and b) you are not qualified to work in any other field.

So someone who is trained and employed as a high-rise construction worker would receive disability benefits if they became wheelchair-bound. But if you worked as a receptionist and became wheelchair-bound, you would receive no benefits because you could return to work as long as your company made the legally-required accommodations (businesses being required to make accommodations to disabled workers as long as those accommodations are reasonable).

On one hand, that makes sense. You don't want someone whose disability is blindness to be denied benefits because their body would still enable them to work as a theoretical physicist. That's an unreasonable thing to require of someone. On the other hand...what's preventing a former construction worker from re-training to become a receptionist? Being employed as a productive member of society is always a better situation for both the disabled person and the tax payer.

I think that disabled people have a duty to themselves and to others to find a job that works for them and their special circumstances if at all possible. And I think the government needs to help them, by offering re-training programs and even higher education subsidies. Aside from the most extreme cases, disability benefits should be a temporary thing to get through a transition from an old job to a new one.

[BlaqueKatt]

There is no reason why someone missing a leg can't get a desk job/ work in a call center/ etc... there's no reason someone with a speech impediment can't do warehouse work or respond to emails (actually, I have a slight speech impediment and I was still able to work in a call center...)

Let's see in my call center we had a worker that had no arms-she was born that way and did not consider herself disabled at all.

I also worked in a warehouse with a shipping clerk that had down's syndrome-he was the best shipping clerk we had.

I also had a neighbor who didn't want to work and had a doctor get her disability based on her being "bipolar"(she wasn't)-she got retroactive payments back to age 12(you cannot be diagnosed as bipolar until age 16 minimum). She had never worked a day in her life and was getting checks for over $2000 a month.

I know of someone who got disability for a drug addiction-yes that's right he was getting government benefits for doing something illegal.

And I have a mother that's on disability for a severe heart condition, she's on a ton of meds, has a difibulator implanted, and is legally blind-she had to fight for 2 years to get disability of $800 a month

[Lace Neil Singer]

Ahh, but my girlfriend is obese, but really does eat FAR less and works
FAR more than I do. It's much less her fault than a drug addiction would be if her own parents started her on it. Which is what food is to the obese; a drug. I'm fat, because I love food and am somewhat lazy. I know I can be skinny, because I was once skinny. She, on the other hand, has never been skinny, and might die before she could get skinny even with a gun to her head.
If that isn't a disability then I don't what is. Even so, she works at her crap job harder than anyone else I've ever met, so screw anyone that says her weight is "her own fault".

Your girlf is the exception, not the rule; true, I was playing devil's advocate and tossing in a firebrand to get the debate rolling, but just cuz your girlf may qualify, does not mean that all obese people do.

A friend of mine suffers from a severe mental illness. I will not name it, cuz I hate it when people hear what he's got and assume he's batshit insane and will murder them. -.- He's on medication for it, and works ten hours a week. He also gets benefits; but his benefits were cut recently, due to him working five hours more. He is trying really hard to get fulltime work, but it's difficult for him due to the nature of his illness; also, his father died a year ago and it really affected him. He has to fight to keep his benefit; however, there are a lot of lazy, stupid people who get their handouts given to them without any trouble at all, and it makes me really angry.

[Flyndaran]

...
A friend of mine suffers from a severe mental illness. I will not name it, cuz I hate it when people hear what he's got and assume he's batshit insane and will murder them. -.- He's on medication for it, and works ten hours a week. He also gets benefits; but his benefits were cut recently, due to him working five hours more. He is trying really hard to get fulltime work, but it's difficult for him due to the nature of his illness; also, his father died a year ago and it really affected him. He has to fight to keep his benefit; however, there are a lot of lazy, stupid people who get their handouts given to them without any trouble at all, and it makes me really angry.

As someone with crippling axiety, and socia phobia I get grief of the opposite type. People think I should just get over it and don't deserve any help. Unfortunately the state also thinks I don't qualify for benefits eventhough I have never worked more than three consectutive days in my life except for one minor helper job. I would love to get a job without freaking out and feeling like a loser, but so far it ain't happened.

So, forgive me if I seem overly focussed on those not recieving needed benefits rather than those getting them when they don't deserve them.

[Saydrah]

I think that disabled people have a duty to themselves and to others to find a job that works for them and their special circumstances if at all possible. And I think the government needs to help them, by offering re-training programs and even higher education subsidies. Aside from the most extreme cases, disability benefits should be a temporary thing to get through a transition from an old job to a new one.

I think nearly all people with disabilities WANT to work. However, in your country, there is no disability act, so shops don't have to be accessible, and I know of several cases through my cousin who lives in Victoria of employers who are MANDATED by the Government to hire a certain quota of people with disabilities refusing even to interview a person who needs accommodations to perform a job. In one case, a government agency is currently harassing an employee who developed a disabling condition and had to take time off from work because of it. The government employer ignored the letters and phone calls from the top doctor for that condition in BC saying the employee needed time off, and decided "We have determined that your condition is not severe enough to require time off work."

Universal accessibility and acceptance of people with disabilities would do more to get people off the government dime and working in jobs they can do than all the regulations in the world.

Heck, I work for a disability-related company, in a country with a disability act, and one of our employees who uses a wheelchair can't come to work right now because building management refuses to fix the automatic opener for the exterior door! They've found some regulation that says if they're already remodeling (they are) they can do the door opener at the very end of the project if they feel like it. So that's exactly what they're doing-- and also remodeling the only accessible bathrooms in the building. There are wheelchair-accessible stalls in all the bathrooms, but only the first floor ones also have low enough sinks for this employee to wash his hands. So which do they close completely for remodeling? That's right... the first-floor bathrooms. So, this employee is working from home, because we refuse to have him forced to stoop to wheeling to outside the door and calling someone from upstairs to come open it for him. He deserves more dignity and independence than that.

There are a few deadbeats who'd really rather live off the government than work, but you know what? Most people don't want to be "on the dole." It's not really a fun lifestyle, and once you get there, it's incredibly difficult to get off-- most people who become disabled don't immediately make enough money to cover their expenses (disability is costly, with medical goods, health care, home modifications, etc.) in their first job after acquiring that disability. But, yet, if they make just a little too much money, their benefits get cut-- including health care. So the way the system is designed forces some people to not work at all, because they can't make enough to pay for health services that are necessary to continue to be able to work, but if they make any money at all their health benefits are on the chopping block. I heard of one woman who got a raise that amounted to $30 a month and lost $400 a month in benefits because of it.

Here, a blogger I read says it better than I can:

Lots of my able-bodied friends seem to think it would be a good idea to be able to sit around and wait for the government to hand you a check to survive. I’ve been on the government dole for many years (because they had rules about losing your services if you worked and I’d rather survive), and I can tell them it’s not all that it is cracked up to be.


You don’t get enough money to function adequately. You frequently run out of food before the end of the month, and something is always unpaid or not paid in full. You usually can’t go out with your friends unless they pay for you, but that gets embarrassing after awhile. Since activism is so important to me, I’ve had to skip trips to the grocery store or neglect my electric bill in order to finance a trip I thought was important.

Not that great to be getting those fabulous government bennies, after all? By contrast, here's what she says about work...

Now, if I want to go to something, I can.


Sure I have to plan and budget for it, but so does everyone else. I can even help out people who are where I was before. I can’t help as much as I would like to, but it is a start. It’s nice to not always be the helpee.


For me, working has improved my self-esteem and sense of self-worth. Not that all people who don’t work are shiftless, but for me self-sufficiency or even partial self-sufficiency is a good choice.

http://www.disaboom.com/Blogs/martin...-the-dole.aspx

[blas87]

My co-worker Dylan's late uncle had scerosis (sp?) of the liver and had been receiving disability checks for quite some time, up until the day he died from it.

So when I get lung cancer and/or skin cancer from tanning, these two things I KNOW aren't good for me and that I KNOW I need to quit doing but choose NOT to, does that mean I get disability too?

[Boozy]

So when I get lung cancer and/or skin cancer from tanning, these two things I KNOW aren't good for me and that I KNOW I need to quit doing but choose NOT to, does that mean I get disability too?

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

People smoke, drink, have unprotected sex, and eat too much junk food. Do we allow these people to fall into destitution and homelessness if and when their lifestyles catch up with them?

Before you answer, consider all of the other things that can cause illness and injury. People drive too fast, play basketball without properly warming up first, ride horses and skydive, climb ladders with no one to spot them, spend too much time in the sun, sleep too little, jaywalk, take tropical vacations without vaccinations, work too much overtime in stressful jobs, go hunting, boat without life jackets, and are sometimes careless with knives.

Do we deny all these people disability too?

I don't want to live in constant fear that one false move or one bad lifestyle choice means that the government will turn its back on me. My husband and I pay our taxes. We deserve the piece of mind that goes with knowing that, no matter how bad things get, the social safety net will prevent us from starving on the streets.

[smileyeagle1021]

So, forgive me if I seem overly focussed on those not recieving needed benefits rather than those getting them when they don't deserve them.

If you think about it though, those two problems are the same. The government has a finite amount of money (despite what Mr. Obama and the current Congress think, ftr, I do agree with the stimulus, but that's for another thread). Every dollar they spend to provide disability for someone who shouldn't be getting benefits is a dollar they can't spend on someone who should. So, by getting rid of the deadbeats who are just mooching off the system we'd be able to get more people like you who legitimately need the assistance to be added onto the system.