The Rise of Disability: What is the Solution?

[_Analytics]

To recap, two serious, big solutions for dealing with the rise of disability have been brought up on this thread:

1. Provide all of our citizens with excellent healthcare so that if anybody has a disabling accident or sickness, they receive the proper care. With proper healthcare, the disabling effects of any number of conditions can be mitigated, prevented, and eliminated.
   
2. Drastically reduce the size of our military and military involvement. Millions of U.S. citizens--literally millions--have joined the military in exemplary health, but are now receiving federal disability benefits. If we want our healthy young Americans to live healthy productive lives, we need to stop sending them to foreign wars where they get their limbs blown off.

[_ajax18]

With proper healthcare, the disabling effects of any number of conditions can be mitigated, prevented, and eliminated.

I disagree. Modern medicine seems to be keeping people alive in a disabled state longer.

I am so sick of the hypocrisy of our posters who have benefited from our social welfare net turning around and criticizing other people who also have benefited from our social welfare net that I'm going to bump this thread into infinity. (or until I forget)

There's not a single one of us who would not give back everything we ever received if we got to keep everything we had to forfeit. And for the record, the government never offered me a safety net. If I didn't work, I wouldn't eat.

[_beastie]

There's not a single one of us who would give back everything we ever received if we got to keep everything we had to forfeit. And for the record, the government never offered me a safety net. If I didn't work, I wouldn't eat.

I'm not talking about you. I know you would like to live on a desert island, where you only have to deal with your own life and choices. Please let us know when you've found an appropriate spot.

(changed due to possibly too much reference to real life information)

Put it this way. There is no way someone who has had long periods of unemployment combined with low wage paying jobs could EVER pay for truly costly healthcare. There is no way someone who has had long periods of unemployment combined with low wage paying jobs could EVER retire and support a spouse without some sort of aid.

These people could get back every cent they ever gave to the government and it wouldn't make a dent in what they've received in turn.

[_beastie]

To recap, two serious, big solutions for dealing with the rise of disability have been brought up on this thread:

1. Provide all of our citizens with excellent healthcare so that if anybody has a disabling accident or sickness, they receive the proper care. With proper healthcare, the disabling effects of any number of conditions can be mitigated, prevented, and eliminated.
   
2. Drastically reduce the size of our military and military involvement. Millions of U.S. citizens--literally millions--have joined the military in exemplary health, but are now receiving federal disability benefits. If we want our healthy young Americans to live healthy productive lives, we need to stop sending them to foreign wars where they get their limbs blown off.

QFT

[_Analytics]

With proper healthcare, the disabling effects of any number of conditions can be mitigated, prevented, and eliminated.

I disagree. Modern medicine seems to be keeping people alive in a disabled state longer.

You are right that modern medicne keeps people alive in a disabled state longer, but it also causes huge reductions in disabilities to begin with.

Leading causes of disability include arthritis, heart disease, depression, diabetes, and nervous system disorders (e.g. multiple sclerosis).* If treated early, there are effective treatments for all of these conditions. These treatments dramatically reduce the probability that they will cause disability, but only if you can afford it.

* see http://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/feat ... disability

[_beastie]

by the way, ajax, if you're still confused about to whom I am referring, very simple internet searches provide all the information you need. Someone on this thread has benefited immensely from government assistance, and is a flaming hypocrite for the things he says on this board.

[_krose]

To recap, two serious, big solutions for dealing with the rise of disability have been brought up on this thread:

1. Provide all of our citizens with excellent healthcare so that if anybody has a disabling accident or sickness, they receive the proper care. With proper healthcare, the disabling effects of any number of conditions can be mitigated, prevented, and eliminated.
   
2. Drastically reduce the size of our military and military involvement. Millions of U.S. citizens--literally millions--have joined the military in exemplary health, but are now receiving federal disability benefits. If we want our healthy young Americans to live healthy productive lives, we need to stop sending them to foreign wars where they get their limbs blown off.

I'm on board!

[_moksha]

Speaking of disability, here is a great video card from Provo Marketing: https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/901885_604632662897520_1766964050_o.jpg

[_ludwigm]

The monetary cost of dementia in the United States ranges from $157 billion to $215 billion annually, making the disease more costly to the nation than either heart disease or cancer, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com/

“The economic burden of caring for people in the United States with dementia is large and growing larger,” said Michael Hurd, the study's lead author and a senior economist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “Our findings underscore the urgency of recent federal efforts to develop a coordinated plan to address the growing impact of dementia on American society.”

[_beastie]

The Rise of Disability: What is the Solution?

Take away disability payments and require the people that can actually work to work, require employers that are at the "lower" end of the employment scale to make a certain percentage of their workforce these so-called "disabled" if they apply.

Well over 3/4 of the so-called "disabled" aren't even disabled that I've talked with and known over the years, at least enough to where they can't actually work. Most either have mild to low mental or physical disability, can still move, function, think etc., yet they get their entire food and housing for free.

Tighten the rules to get these free-loaders off the system and we will get back to sustainability in this area.

How much free health care have your children received over the years? Enough to pay for costly surgery?

bump