Same for right to repair, universal healthcare, SaaS etc… Companies much prefer to spend 100 million make things difficult than using that 100 million to make things easy. As long as we lose.

My wife is on disability.

We worked with an attorney to submit the application and go through the process. When she initially applied, she was denied, as I would guess most people are.

She gathered paperwork and submitted it for the appeal. We had a hearing scheduled, and on the day of the hearing, I took the day off work to take her into the city.

When we got to the lobby of the building, we walked up to the security desk told the guard where we were going. Without looking up he asked which one of us was applying for disability, but before we could answer he looked up and said, “oh. She is”, which seemed a bit unnecessary to me, but it gives you an idea of her situation.

So we get up to the office where the hearing would take place, and we check in, and there is a bit of confusion.  My wife's attorney goes to talk to them, and comes back to say that our hearing was cancelled.  He said he's waiting to talk to the judge to find out what's going on.

When the judge comes out, she apologizes and says someone was supposed to contact us to let us know the hearing was cancelled.  She said she had reviewed the paperwork and decided in my wife's favor so the hearing was unnecessary.

When the attorney told us, he said it was pretty amazing because the judge rejects *every* appeal.  He didn't want to tell us that before the hearing because he didn't want us to give up, but he said he wasn't expecting it to succeed.


Now, my wife submitted the same information in the initial application.  If that information was enough to convince the judge we didn't need to bother with the appeal hearing to approve her disability, why the hell was the initial application rejected?

I support UBI because I am a fiscal conservative.

I’m in the UK and have a number of chronic illnesses that would be debilitating on their own. All together it’s honestly a struggle to survive. When I was first diagnosed 17 years ago we had a labour government. I applied for Disability living allowance (now called PIP) and Employment and support allowance and based on the medical evidence I submitted I was declared “permanently unable to work due to disability”. I was to inform them of any changes to my health but otherwise I was done. No more assessments, no more forms. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was enough for food, clothes, rent and utilities.

Then the Tory government took over and decided that my genetic, incurable and life threatening illnesses might somehow resolve themselves if they just kept bugging me enough. So every 3 years for the last 15 years I’ve had to go through increasingly lengthy and humiliating assessments, conducted by staff who are less and less qualified to make these conditions. I’m currently 15 months into my latest review. Over a year of stress, uncertainty and worry on top of what I already deal with. By the time they make their decision (and there is absolutely no guarantee the decision will be in my favour) I’ll have about a years peace before having to go through this dehumanising process again.

It’s disgusting.

In Australia we have a system called the NDIS and while it still requires all of the above once you’re on it there is a little freedom to decide how to spend the funds that you are allocated for support.

Despite the fraud percentage rate being in single digits (even including genuine mistakes) people are still up in arms about it because they’re brainwashed morons who don’t understand that fighting this minuscule amount of fraud costs more than accepting it. They just want disabled people, whom they see as beneath them, to suffer.

Meanwhile, we spent the last decade handing out billions in corporate welfare and that was perfectly okay. We’re also going to purchase several hundred billion in US subs and piss off our neighbours because of “China” fear mongering.

I and my wife are going through this now. SSDI is all like “nah, we dont believe you’ve lost your sight”. This is why I wholeheartedly advocate for violence as a means for change because NO OTHER WAY WORKS.

What could ever go wrong if just got their support approved, no questions asked?

And yet I know someone, and know people who know someone(s), who is on disabity that shouldn’t be. Same for people who have been denied of jerked around for

Good people are struggling and suffering that don’t want to but do need the extra help. How does that build a fair system? You try so hard to prevent anyone taking advantage but they will always slip through the cracks somehow. The solution should not be to punish everyone - and it impacts us all. We are one stroke of bad luck away from being unable to work for whatever reason.

In my neck of the woods, the infamous disability attorney Eric C. Conn made his practice and of course cleaned up through some crooked means. Though to his credit, cut through all this bureaucratic bullshit and delivered relief to a bunch of folks in dire need of it. In that respect he’s a freaking humanitarian.
Sadly, when he was finally busted all those claims got thrown back onto the dumpster fire and many got denied by default or are still in dispute.

And the death penalty costs more than living in prison for the rest of your life. Sometimes the most profitable/cheapest way is the good way.

Yeesh, a “stage tribunal,” it sounds like something from the pre-christian Roman ages of throwing “unfit” people to the lions. I’ll never know why, but our best talent as humans is finding more ways to bungle simple processes with bloated amounts of red tape and hoops to jump through - especially when the people who most need the benefits are least able to navigate those things.

That can’t be right.

Maybe in upfront costs, but not the cost of losing a taxpayer

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