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.
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.
<span style="color:#323232;">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.
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</span><span style="color:#323232;">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.
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</span><span style="color:#323232;">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.
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</span><span style="color:#323232;">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?
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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.
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.
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.
If it truly ever got to that point, then yes, things like spot check audits to act as a deterrent could make sense. But when our current system penalizes a community for abusing a privilege they don’t even have, it’s hard to look at the huge and unnecessary costs and say “we’re making the most out of our tax dollars.”
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.
Well, if people could see that positive change is completely possible, the might get the idea that they could actually demand that change. We can’t have that.
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