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Dubiously Disabled: Our compassion is being stolen, one parking space, one wheelchair at a time
National Review ^ | 05/01/2013 | Lee Habeeb

Posted on 05/01/2013 6:13:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

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To: Jubal Harshaw
I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned one of the more common users of handicapped parking spaces I’ve seen (in the Chicago IL area, at least): marked police cars.

I've seen that a lot, too. And other people sit there with the motor running, I guess so they can flee if they see a Polic car.

81 posted on 05/01/2013 11:55:55 AM PDT by Cyber Liberty (I am a dissident. Will you join me? My name is John....)
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To: dagogo redux

“”we accept Medicare only for people over 65””

Who is eligible for Medicare BEFORE 65?


82 posted on 05/01/2013 6:12:16 PM PDT by Thank You Rush
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To: SeekAndFind; Old Sarge; NorthernCrunchyCon; UMCRevMom@aol.com; Finatic; fellowpatriot; ...
+

Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:

Add me / Remove me

Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.

83 posted on 05/01/2013 6:55:15 PM PDT by narses
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To: Thank You Rush

People with disabilities, SSDI.


84 posted on 05/01/2013 7:11:51 PM PDT by dagogo redux (A whiff of primitive spirits in the air, harbingers of an impending descent into the feral.)
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To: republicangel

So many people are unhappy, and so many people just have pathetic lives that they have to lash out at some marginalized group to vent their hate and bitterness. Who better than the disabled. Its not like they’re going to check anybody’s medical charts before they spew their bile. Save yourself some grief and stop trying to educate these cretins.


85 posted on 05/01/2013 7:25:54 PM PDT by Nachoman (Wisdom is learned, cynicism is earned.)
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To: DoughtyOne
Lesson: Don’t worry about what other people are doing. STFU and be the best person you can be.

thank you....I needed that.

86 posted on 05/01/2013 7:33:49 PM PDT by ZinGirl (kids in college....can't afford a tagline right now)
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To: SeekAndFind
Our local YMCA shares a parking lot with Pizza hut. I can't count the number of times that i would arrive at 6 am and see people parked in the Pizza huts handicapped spots.

Yes I realize that the Pizza hut is closed at 6 am, but for crying out loud they are going to the GYM to WORK OUT!

87 posted on 05/01/2013 7:42:03 PM PDT by verga (A nation divided by Zero!)
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To: Texas Eagle
With all the people who are on “disability” these days, I’m surprised 90% of parking spaces aren’t reserved for “the handicapped.”

My wife and I have a handicap parking placard on our van. I can walk but she can’t. She hasn’t don so in the past 28 years and baring Divine intervention here on this earth she won’t walk another step. Generally when paralyzes hits due to spinal cord issues the first use regained in the six-eight months to follow determine about 90% of the recovery of use of limbs. Many persons don’t know that.

True we do have better medical knowledge than in 1960. But many persons are also surviving illnesses and accidents today that most did not in 1960. Twenty Eight years ago the spinal/stroke rehab center my wife spent three months in was about 20 rooms in a hospital. Today it is an entire floor. When she suddenly could not walk or even move her arms and hands the doctors were at a loss. Our city had yet to get a MRI at any of the hospitals. 18 months later came the diagnoses after one was installed. During that time her hand and arm function were somewhat restored. But she is a quad. Before that she was a Certified Nursing Assistant working in a nursing home. Her 4’10” 90 pound body would left grown men.

About nine years after that I was hit with a mystery disorder that they could not diagnose. I could walk OK though. But I developed a severe overreaction to certain sounds and visual events. The reaction I learned four years later is seizures. I have one of the more common diagnoses likely seen in disability cases called General Anxiety Disorder. I am non phobic, I don’t have panic attacks, and no traumatic event caused it. It was some issues I had since birth that due to my body aging became more acute to finally the point of disability. BTW I tried several times to return to work. The last time I did it left me unable to do anything but answer yes and no questions for two days. I lost my ability to concentrate as well.

It was the Social Security Disability examiners who just finally flat out told me I could no longer work. Before that I was working about 50 plus hours a week and being a full time caregiver to my wife at home. Thankfully I still can manage to do that. I’ve been on disability for 18 years and not one doctor has even hinted I could ever work again.

Now about two years after my wife went quad they did place her in a retraining program. Their idea of rehabilitation and retraining was to be a telemarketer in a boiler room operation. It would have also meant loss of all medical coverage and we had already been bankrupt from her hospital bills when she got canceled three months into her six month hospital stay.

I have a cousin who has a handicap parking placard. He can walk but not far. He has CHF and it can’t be fixed. He’s outlived his estimated time left by about two years. It took him nearly two years and a lawyer to get disability and that was about 3-4 years ago. It took me an appeal the best I remember and about nine months. My wife was even turned down first time. Our total SSDI income is $1500 a month. From that $1500 a significant portion goes toward her needed Asthma medications {she is on Medicare A-B-D and Medicaid. We don’t qualify for SSI and as for Food Stamps? LOL $42 a month.

Now I know some persons do draw a lot more. We don’t. My sister draws more $5000 a month more than us combined but her deceased husband was an engineer and made good money. Sis is disabled with Dementia caused by several previous strokes among other things. She‘s 60. My point is things happen to persons they don’t ask for. If I had a magic wand my wife would walk, Sis would have her mind back, and I’d be back at work. But that’s not reality. However for the Bean Counters thinking everyone is getting ripped off here is something to consider. My wife needs skilled care. A nursing home when I had to retire 18 years ago was about $&% a day just for room and board not counting other things. $75 X 365 is $27, 375 a year. Our combined income is $18K a year. Which is cheaper?

88 posted on 05/01/2013 9:46:15 PM PDT by cva66snipe (Two Choices left for U.S. One Nation Under GOD or One Nation Under Judgment? Which one say ye?)
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To: jrg
Just sayin' that all disabilities may not be externally visible (but FAT isn't a disability - FAT should have their own special parking space as far away as possible so that they can "walk it off")

Which came first the chicken or the egg? Meaning which may have happened first the disability limiting ability to exercise and burn off fat or the fat itself? I've packed on pounds the last few years. I tried walking. I ended up making my knees worse. Hard to explain I was born Club Footed, became flat footed at work, and have walked off balance all my life due to Inner Ear & sensory issues I was born with. That makes exercising difficult and by doctors orders restricted. I do wear corrective insoles and now I use a cane for balance to walk. Yep I often grab a store scooter too but we shop real late at night because I can't handle crowd noises.

89 posted on 05/01/2013 9:58:55 PM PDT by cva66snipe (Two Choices left for U.S. One Nation Under GOD or One Nation Under Judgment? Which one say ye?)
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To: dagogo redux
Well to be honest I don't hold your profession in very high regard. Most shrinks I met/saw were more screwed up in their heads than the patients waiting in their office waiting to see them. Most had not picked up a medical journal in years and had about as many Pharm reps as patients in the waiting room all carrying antidepressant samples.

Two Shrinks I met Damn near killed my wife because to two did not know what Serotonin Syndrome was. Can you guess the uneducated one who figured it out for them was? Why was she seeing a Shrink? For PTSD where a stupid dentist nearly killed her with the wrong pain medication that put her into a Coma. I kid you not.

I took my wife in for an emergency appointment with her shrink because she was very agiated and very confused. This had never been her mental state. Dr FeelGood said well lets up your Zoloft and see me in a month. By the time we got home she was pyschotic as in halucinating and we went to the ER. There she went unconscious. Now that should tell any doctor Hey something very wrong is happening this is not a mental issue once she was unconscious. Not one of six doctors did a PDR on her Meds. Having a patient off all meds for 48 hours but Ativan and the symptoms clearing should tell them something. They should have really giotten a clue when Dr Feelgood walks in and says Up the Zoloft and in one hour of injestion she was out of it. Nope all of that went right over their professionally trained heads.

Darn Shrinks refusing to think outside their Pharmaceutical box darn near killed me as well. How many of your male patients you prescribe Paxil or antidepressants too do you tell them watch for bladder blockage? That can lead to Dysreflexia. That can cause death.

90 posted on 05/01/2013 10:21:57 PM PDT by cva66snipe (Two Choices left for U.S. One Nation Under GOD or One Nation Under Judgment? Which one say ye?)
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To: FreedomNotSafety
Whenever the parking places first started it was mainly for persons in wheelchairs where they had a full size van and needed room to get out including about 6 feet to lower the lift and exit. We still use that type of van. It's a big Hi-top conversion van with a hydraulic lift on the side. I've circled doctors buildings and hospitals for 30 minutes at times waiting on someone to leave.

I do want to say this though. People Please when you see a van parked in a handicapped spaced where there is an extra marked off area don't pull into that marked off place and park beside the vans passanger side door. It is marked so the van lift can be lowered. The person using the wheelchair lift might also be the driver and they are at your mercy waiting till you come out so they can get in their vehicle.

I've seen one worse by ones who should know better. Walmarts started marking off Van Parking Areas where you pull in long ways and can exit the van straight into the parking lot. They are clearly marked such. Nine out of ten times a person with a placard will pull into the space headed in like a normal space and then another park beside them.

91 posted on 05/01/2013 10:48:30 PM PDT by cva66snipe (Two Choices left for U.S. One Nation Under GOD or One Nation Under Judgment? Which one say ye?)
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To: cva66snipe

Wow! Someone on FreeRepublic disparaging my profession. That’s a new one! How very original.


92 posted on 05/01/2013 10:51:29 PM PDT by dagogo redux (A whiff of primitive spirits in the air, harbingers of an impending descent into the feral.)
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To: dagogo redux
LOL sorry Doc but I really have seen the bad side of it. And I've seen the good side of it too. The bad side was with my wife whom a shrink gave Trazodone and Zoloft. Several attending ER physicians at two hospitals and two shrinks all missed it. I came home about day 5 into it after she relapsed and typed in Trazodone +Zoloft and I had her diagnoses in seconds. Getting the doctors to believe it was not easy. But hey when it's the teaching hospitals Pharmacology Professors alert on Serotonin Syndrome then they kinda have to say well yea maybe LOL.

Seriously after they Finally did a CT scan at day 5 it showed a bleeder in the brain and she left the hospital with partial amnesia. The Xanax she was taking with the Zoloft and Trazodone was likely why it didn't kill her.

I had a rough time with them because I have a form of GAD that antidepressants can not be used to treat. I'm strictly auditory and visual sensory triggered. I go into myoclonic seizures at certain sounds and visual stimulation.. Needless to say I did not need my sensory uptake inhibited LOL. I fought and won that one after I figured out just what the heck was really wrong with me about two years into it. I did finally find a doctor who knew how to correctly treat it and would listen. A half MG of Xanax four times a day and no antideprrssants. I also found out what Paxil could do to a mans bladder. My medical training came in handy on that one.

93 posted on 05/01/2013 11:34:27 PM PDT by cva66snipe (Two Choices left for U.S. One Nation Under GOD or One Nation Under Judgment? Which one say ye?)
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To: cva66snipe

Here’s my take:

Where I live, it costs $86 to start up a single person LLC. $86. Probably not a huge percentage of someone’s monthly disability take to get them started.

Anyone who can sit/lie around typing/dictating on Free Republic has a demonstrated skill.

Anyone with a demonstrated skill, and something to offer others through that skill, can parlay that into a business, especially in the Information Age, when millions are doing exactly that, and many are doing it quite successfully, and doing it despite “disabilities.”

Those with such a skill, but without anything to offer others through the use of that skill, can develop something to offer others that people would be willing to pay for.

Those who cannot (or will not bother to) develop something others would value enough to pay for, should be of such character that family, friends, neighbors and charities would consider them worthwhile enough to come to their aid.

But what we have now is a huge number of people with demonstrated skills - ie the ability to type/dictate, surf the web, render astute opinions, etc - who are supported by strangers whose money is forced from them at the point of a gun by various government agencies.

I’m not in favor of such a system, and it strikes me as odd that anyone on FR would be. I have zero respect for people who try to justify this system in their own case on a conservative site, in complete sentences, with heart-rending examples, when they could use their skills to earn a living by starting a web site with its own forums, or start a blog about their plight, or write and publish for sale a book or the books of others about such things, or become a freelance writer and earn a living that way.

Sheesh.


94 posted on 05/02/2013 7:38:09 AM PDT by dagogo redux (A whiff of primitive spirits in the air, harbingers of an impending descent into the feral.)
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To: dagogo redux
Really? How many times a day do you have a task you want to do and then at the slightest distraction you can not recall what it was? Can you read this entire thread and retain the information long enough to process it? I can't. Concentration is a commodity for me that is there part of the time and gone most of the time. Worse than that I can not detect my own grammar errors or sentence structuring errors and correcting them can be difficult requiring many tries.

I do what I can do and I have a lot on my plate I deal with besides what I mentioned. I have to concentrate to cook so I don't burn the darn house down. If I get distracted I might not return to what I was doing. As for typing? I do hunt and peck.

Now I do know someone who was born with severe limitations a full quad. She has a college degree. She also works. The amount of money it has taken to get her to that point is about six times or more what it cost others because everything had to be adapted. She can only move her fingers so someone must go with her to assist her and drive her. Her job? Interviewing persons for government work programs. What may sound good on paper often is either not practical or economically wise.

But hey you want to save Medicaid and Medicare money? I have some ideas and the math works. Medicare/Medicaid will pay up to $100 a day to room and board a patient in a nursing home. Yet if a family wants to care for Grandpa or Granny or even a sibling at home they will receive very limited help. I know what I'm talking about I've been a caregiver 28 years. In 28 years we've had about a dozen home health visits. Today because an issue that popped up our doctor has sent them out again. He knows when I tell him I can't get a wound to heal up he knows it's serious. A nursing home gets money for care of patients but family doing for self gets very limited help. Ever hear of the powerful nursing home lobby? I beleieve in family caring for family.

Not everyone can be a care giver either. But many of our elderly and disabled end up in nursing homes because family can not afford to cut one of two of their incomes. I've worked full time and been a caregiver at home. Part of that is what made my condition hit earlier. With this disorder the brain can only juggle X number of task and issues at one time. Your a Shrink or so you say you are and so you should know this stuff.

I have one more I am also helping coordinate care for and thats my sister. She's in a secured unit for Dementia but I'm the one who checks on her and first contact etc. Last year I also did my dads Hospice care at home.

You sit and you judge others persons disabilities doctor and yet you have not met them? How professional is that? All person I know who are disabled would rather not be so. There are abusers in any system.

There are also realities the article skipped including medical technology advances that can save a persons life but the person may be left severely disabled as a result.

Oh and hey Doc you sure stay up late and have time to post at work LOL.

95 posted on 05/02/2013 9:14:37 AM PDT by cva66snipe (Two Choices left for U.S. One Nation Under GOD or One Nation Under Judgment? Which one say ye?)
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To: SeekAndFind

Has nobody caught the real point of the article that there is a lot of disability (not just handicapped parking permit) FRAUD going on today?

How, miraculously, because people can’t find jobs they decide they can’t work at all? How they go straight from unemployment to disability? How they prefer a government check to work because it’s easier and often more lucrative?

People work with back pain, depression, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, blind, deaf, etc...etc....etc... ALL THE TIME! If they have the character to do so.

Disability has it’s place but it’s generally become a huge scam and racket. And this article doesn’t even mention SSI payments to “disabled” children of around $700/month for maladies such as ADHD. Parents with multiple “disabled” children live off the kids’ cash. Add food stamps, Section 8, Medicaid, Obama Fones, etc... it’s much preferable to flipping burgers or cleaning toilets. Which is why we have to get illegals to “do the jobs American’s won’t do”


96 posted on 05/02/2013 3:17:31 PM PDT by GatorGirl (Who is John Galt?)
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To: SeekAndFind

A study once showed most cities have more handicapped parking than handicapped stickers issues.

Typical beauracracy at work.


97 posted on 05/02/2013 3:23:51 PM PDT by Fledermaus (The Republican Party is dead. Let's not pretend otherwise.)
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To: SeekAndFind

It’s also laziness and the idea of entitlement. The same goes for fire lanes; people park in them to run in and get a pizza or pick up dry cleaning.

I always call the police and fire marshal on them and give thier license plate numbers.

Once I saw an idiot park in a fire lane and an actual fire broke out and the fire truck guys just rammed his car and cops arrested him! I was laughing so hard.


98 posted on 05/02/2013 3:26:54 PM PDT by Fledermaus (The Republican Party is dead. Let's not pretend otherwise.)
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I have a messed up ankle from a car accident and my walking is limited (mostly by distance and time) and I was told I could qualify for a handicap sticker.

Thank you, but no I said.


99 posted on 05/02/2013 3:28:43 PM PDT by Fledermaus (The Republican Party is dead. Let's not pretend otherwise.)
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To: GatorGirl
It's sad but ADD ADHD likely has about a 95% misdiagnoses rate. There is likely a real problem that while it can't be cured it can be treated and classroom adaptions made. Net cost? Usually $0 except for diagnoses and possible treatment of an underlying physical issue such as sinus allergies or ear infections doing the damage.

Look up Central Auditory Processing Disorders. It can be both auditory and Optic. The thing is there is no Pharmaceutical money to be made as Ritalin usually will not help but rather can make it worse nor will a CAPD diagnoses mean special pay for schools or parents. An Audiologist should be among the first steps taken & Shrink the last resort for suspected ADD ADHD.

100 posted on 05/02/2013 5:52:57 PM PDT by cva66snipe (Two Choices left for U.S. One Nation Under GOD or One Nation Under Judgment? Which one say ye?)
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