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.
Is this true though? Because I could foresee if you had no checks and balances on disability you would end up with a lot of dishonest people exploiting the system and then overwhelming it, making it way more expensive than just looking after disabled people. The part where people who genuinely need it get their claims denied for the sake of covering the cost of the people who denied it is straight up evil though
Have you actually looked into the cost of this proposed grifting? Like welfare it’s actually hard to “take advantage of” because it’s so little money. People underestimate the difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars, and these help programs, even if some take advantage, are still drastically cheaper than all the enforcement we put around making sure people don’t grift. This is true for welfare and healthcare. The American system costs more than most countries per capita because of rich grifters, not poor grifters.
It’s just the optics, and people prefer to spend more than feel like someone is getting a leg up. It’s the entire platform of conservative governments around the world and it’s a sham. Show me numbers that are actually impacted if say, 20% of people are cheating compared to all the monej we spend trying to drive that number down. The numbers are so laughably low it’s not even a rounding error in budgets.
1 million dollars if every dollar was a second equates to a little over 10 days. 1 billion dollars is a little over 30 years!!!
Disability is hard to take advantage of because there are checks and balances. You get more money on disability than on unemployment welfare and there are plenty of people on unemployment who would take more money if they could get it. Having an open door policy on disability gives that opportunity.
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?
When my partner tried to apply for disability, she was initially denied. So she appealed with the help of a lawyer to try to put things in her favor.
The lawyer showed up with a massive stack of papers, said “wow, this is the most proof I’ve seen, this should go smoothly.”
My partner goes into the hearing. She comes out quite quickly, and tells me what happened. The judge confirmed her identity, asked her about her transgender-related healthcare, then said there’s no more questions, it seems like she can work, and that the appeal was over.
The lawyer said nothing in the appeal. On the way out, he said “huh, I thought that was a sure thing.” We never heard from the law agency again. They were the biggest agency in a major city.
Of course the denial letter didn’t mention being trans at all, instead it said she’s just lazy, and even had a claim that her medical history is likely faked.
It’s an amazing system – very successful in denying people benefits.
I work with a number of disabled people and most of them were denied initially. I think they deny a majority of them the first time around just to weed out those who aren’t serious and resourceful.
I support UBI because I am a fiscal conservative.
There is, no joke, a surprising amount of libertarian support.
The two most prominent libertarian supporters of a UBI are Matt Zwolinski, a libertarian philosophy professor at the University of San Diego, and the economist Michael Munger.
(I think it’s important to clarify that I’m left-libertarian, not an ‘edgy fascist’ an-cap like those who’ve co-opted the label in the US.)
Yeah, it does make me nervous because it feels like a lot of libertarian ideology around UBI involves getting rid of social security, food stamps, etc. etc. without guaranteeing UBI will cover basic survival.
without guaranteeing UBI will cover basic survival.
If it fails at that, it’s just “UI” and thus doesn’t count, by definition.
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.