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Facebook Photos Lead To Cancellation of Quebec Woman's Insurance
No. 24601 writes "A Quebec woman on long-term sick leave, due to a diagnosis of depression, lost her health benefits after her insurance provider found photos of her on Facebook smiling and looking cheerful at parties and out on the beach. Besides all the obvious questions, how did the insurance company access her locked Facebook profile?"
By all rights, she should be facing a charge of insurance fraud for receiving benefits based on a false claim.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
And it worked, she's having a good time, she's no longer depressed. Cancel the benefits for depression, she doesn't need them anymore, send her back to work.
Unless of course you argue that depression doesn't work that way. I'm of the mindset that claiming "depression" is basically a way of saying "I don't want to work, but I can't afford not to," and I blame everyone who has abused the definition of depression as a mental disorder to file false disability claims for coloring my view of the subject.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
Please note that US Healthcare is essentially zero. My dad had a damaged shouler, and they had it fixed just 2 weeks later. (more below)
UK HEALTHCARE WAITING TIMES
8 months - cataract surgery
11 months- hip replacement
12 months- knee replacement
5 months - slipped disc
5 months - hernia repair
- SOURCE - The BBC, May 2009
PROSTATE 5-YEAR CANCER SURVIVOR RATE
100%- United States
90% - Canada
77% - United Kingdom
*this* is just one example of many, why people say the U.S. has the best healthcare in the world, because the cure rate is soooo much higher than in countries where care is monopolized by the government. MEP Daniel Hannan said in early August, "The worst thing to be is elderly under the UK Health System..... you will be denied care and left starving in wards."
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
My best friend and my brother have both had severe depression problems. It is quite possible to be out and functioning at moderate levels of depression - talking, smiling, looking like you're enjoying yourself. I think one described it something like this:
If you can be out and functioning, then you can function at your goddamned desk and stop trying to rob those people who do show up to work despite their depression.
This is my sig.
This sounds like a case where the lady is committing fraud. If she can function at a bar, she can function at a desk. All too often people rationalize their maladies, and find doctors willing to agree, such that they really can find a way to not work. Health insurance disability is a huge racket.
I know some photographers that used to earn a good living taking pictures of people with "bad backs" lifting cases of beer out of their cars or working on additions to their homes. The thing is, some states, notably Pennsylvannia, are so crooked that they pretty much accept any fraud that's out there. They are socialists and they just let people loot the system because they really don't care about the whole outcome. So you've got a guy collecting disabillity getting videotaped playing American style football, and the PA commisioners say, get this, that, just because he can play football doesn't mean that he can work.
Unfortunately, saying that we can really clamp down on fraud for disability is not going to work. Disability has become the social services backstop for combat vets and in America, there are a lot of them. The VA is just hopelessly overwhelmed - science has no answers really, so, gaming the disability system a bit to just try and put a roof over your head is ok in my book for vets. I know a guy that showed up at the VA looking for some bucks because his hearing got blown out during Vietnam war - 40 years ago. The thing is, he's pretty much had a rough life because of his war experiences and so yeah, I don't have a problem with my .08 cents a check for my share of his disability payment.
This is my sig.
My best friend and my brother have both had severe depression problems. It is quite possible to be out and functioning at moderate levels of depression - talking, smiling, looking like you're enjoying yourself. I think one described it something like this:
Dude, you know what. I have depression. There's not an hour where I wake up where I'm NOT thinking about killing myself or everyone else and I just bit my damned upper lip, say life sucks, and move on. I enjoy the fleeting moments of happiness like a fine glass of whiskey and move on, and frankly, getting out and doing something, and having a job, and working, even if you screw it up, is the best thing you can do.
When you go through hell, keep going.
This is my sig.
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I am not defending the money-grubbing insurance company(ies) or the way health insurance works in North America, but what about the responsibilities of this woman and/or her doctor(s)?
According to the article, she's been on long term disability for a year and a half. This isn't a case of a person working, while the insurance company refuses to pay medical bills. No, this woman has been on long term disability (by it's very definition meaning you are not able to perform your job) - and while she takes off work for 18 months from IBM (a large enough company that should have plenty of options for limited functionality), she's going to parties, going on vacation, etc, etc, and continuing to collect a (pay)check.
I am not a lawyer, I am not a doctor, I don't know this person, I don't work for IBM, I don't have any affiliation with any health insurance company (other than being a "customer" myself), but the woman has already talked to a lawyer, and the amount of press she's already getting worries me that there will be a large settlement and lengthy legal proceedings, and guess where that money comes from... other insurance payers and taxpayers.
And this woman's defense is that she doesn't know how the insurance company accessed her photos that she posted on the Internet... come on.
For example when I review the WHO's stats, I don't see negative numbers for the United States. I see that we Americans are ahead of the Europeans and the Russians and the Chinese. How? Simple. When I treat the European Union as a single united government under a single president (because that's what they are now that Lisbon Treaty has passed), I see this:
(1) San Marino ... ...
(2) Andorra
(3) Singapore
(4) Oman
(5) Japan
(6) Colombia
(7) Saudi Arabia
(8) USA
(9) Israel
(10) Morocco
(11) Canada
(12) Australia
(13) Chile
(14) Dominica
(15) Costa Rica
(16) United States
(17) Cuba (the have government healthcare; why aren't they higher?)
(18) Brunei
(19) EUROPEAN UNION
(20) New Zealand
(115) Russia
(129) China
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I agree. Insurance companies can be bad.
That doesn't mean I think government is better - in fact I think it's worse because it's a monopoly (as evidenced by the fact they want to fine me ~$2500 for not taking Uncle Sam's proposed product). At least with the private market there's a choice - if Nationwide sucks, then I can try Allstate instead. Or Prudential. Or whoever.
Or just pay cash directly. I can get big discounts from the doctors when I pay cash or credit card (it makes their lives simpler). They key point is I DECIDE the course of my life, not somebody like Gordon Brown or George Bush
You certainly live in a beautiful dream world.
each state in the union is utterly dominated by one or two insurance providers. These providers are also excluded from anti-trust laws, so they collude; you're essentially doing business with ONE firm under two names. It's like buying "broadband" in the US, only far far worse.
Pay out of pocket? do you REALLY want to go down this road? I have crohn's disease, can't buy coverage at any price, and have strained the collective finances of my entire extended family with medication that costs more per DOSE than most households pay in total monthly expenses.
Again, your dream world is wonderful, may I please have whatever souped up cocktail of opiates and hallucinogens you ingest hourly?
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Wow, reading these posts I had no idea SlashDot was a haven for big government European style socialism. It's hilarious.
Unfortunately, many of you are also retarded for having poor reading comprehension. First, she's getting disability money and not working because she has depression? WTF. That alone is retarded. Second, she was seen "having a good time". If you can have a good time somewhere else, you can have one at work. Who doesn't hate their job? Now we're going to pay people not to work because they're depressed?
They didn't cancel her "insurance", they stopped paying her free money so she could go hang out at the beach and have a good time.
Then fix it. Drop the interstate barriers and let people get insurance from an company across the continent. That will solve these problems w/o need to resort to a government takeover of my damn body
Fuck.
no it wont, the exemption is NATIONAL, all it will do is make the price fixing and collusion NATIONAL, and we all know how very "competitive" the cell phone industry is.. theyre national and FAR less corrupt.
If you've studied your economics you'll understand that without government intervention, there are always large numbers of people who will go UNSERVED otherwise. This is fine for luxuries like television and vehicles, but NOT for freakin medical care.
'm sorry to hear you are sick,
but you already have government help (that's what safety nets are for).
no i don't. I don't get shit from the government. In order to qualify I need to either:
A - be over 65
B - have knocked someone up and made them spit out a kid
I don't qualify for either. I suppose you would suggest I do something as stupid as have a kid amidst the financial ruin my medical condition has wrought?
YOU LIVE IN A DREAM WORLD, and what's worse you're desperately, DESPERATELY trying to rationalize your inhumanity to your fellow american citizens and their need for medical care and your refusal to bear the inconvenience of a few dinners out a year in taxes... i mean "OH, EM, GEE.. you might have to HELP your fellow americans!!"
And.. apparently your "body" is made out of greenbacks..
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