Do NOT fuck with the deaf and ABSOLUTELY DO NOT FUCK WITH THE BLIND!
They’ve had blind and deaf societies (charitable foundations) about as long as the Metropolitan Police have been around.
They’re great organisations for people who suffer from those conditions because they DO NOT stand for these people going without the support they need.
They are viciously litigious and I for one can only hope that they continue to take the DWP to the fucking cleaners on behalf of the rest of society who continue to be shafted by that horrid department.
DWP still fucks us though. Refusing to provide help with claims unless you insist. Takes ages to get things sorted with them keep saying. We are not allowed to fill the forms for you.
If you are not someone strong enough to stand up to them. They will fuck you over in the name of process. Saying you need to find someone to help you. PS do not do that. Make sure they get someone qualified.
What was said internally is absolutely brutal.
How many others lack the energy, strength, or (bs) “social skills” to work through this?
Might actually result in change.
My own lived experience is that the blind/deaf orgs who pursue these things should be a model for other orgs serving folks w/ other disabilities.
As a legally blind person also my brother.
DWP really is crappy. You ask for help filling thing in. They out right say they can’t.
You are literally forced to insist. My brother literally sat at the desk with his guide dog. And said I am not leaving untill I get help.
This was when moving him from DLA to PIP. When it first happened.
Disable people should not be forced to fight for their rights. By the same government responsible for enforcing the laws.
You are entirly correct many lack the energy and strength.
Things are no better stateside. To get social security disability takes years, and a lawyer who will take a portion of your back pay settlement when finally awarded.
And of course one can’t be earning money during the process.
Even with private short term disability coverage through employer, while it was more efficient than that, I still barely had the strength to get through it just to get partially paid for 10 hrs a week for a few months, in hopes that I can regroup, get things back together, and be able to make it through forty hour weeks.
Since that’s an external company, and our HR and payroll is a different external company, now I have to stay on the latter to make sure a) they get the memo and b) I actually get the pay in question.
Seriosly
Why would anyone expect the states to be better. You have a reputation for cruelty towards your own citizens.
Honestly the states is not the part of the world most brits expect anyone to aspire towards. Its who we warn people to avoid.
Entirely valid question, that as a USian, I might just be qual to answer. The ratio between them varies by individual, but it boils down to a core American exceptionalism that’s taught actively from very young; some ridiculous blather about how having founding docs / written constitution makes our rights safer even in context of significant social change; and my personal least fave, the idea that if one didn’t directly and proximately earn something through capital or wage slavery, they just aren’t working hard enough and therefore shouldn’t have it.
Those things are at the core of a very large group of American voters’ opinions, and all are fatally flawed.
Of course, as a child of the very early eighties, growing up it was still (at least conceptually) possible to buy a house and a car on one income, within relatively recent history. As it absolutely should be.
Kicking that exceptionalism thought process is quite the struggle (as is the rest), even for those motivated to do it.
Civilised world has mostly lower paid docs (relative to us) but also mostly some sort of universal care. I’d gladly accept NHS-level wait times, if it meant that I could take the $2k a month that my emp and I together now pay for insurance (just 2 adults) - even if taxed to support that sort of system, that is real money.
Things are bettter than they were in my lifetime, even though ObamaCare was basically a typical American “personal responsibility” solution, just with subsidies to avoid actively excluding only the less financially well off.
Used to be that you had to have continuous coverage in order to get a new cost, or pre existing conditions weren’t covered under a newer policy even if one could buy one privately (you really couldn’t, practically).
Healthcare before ACA was a sanctioned and mostly very profitable betting operation for large carriers because the risk pool for each individual policy was large, and there were max amounts and sometimes lifetime total limits that could be paid.
By comparison, what we have is pretty great for folks who lived thru that era, but… Hot garbage compared to many other developed nations.
We’re a nation full of people literally trained to think our system is the best in the world. Helluva barrier to overcome, all the more so when the ACA did actually make things better.
Mild sidetrack but the only reason to assume by default our system might be better is the education (indoctrination) we receive early and often, and consistently.
Always appreciate a comment that makes me question why/how I made some assumption.
