Friday, September 19, 2014

New York City’s PTSD Scam








August 14th, 2014


Disability scamming has always been a subject near and dear to my heart.

America today, finds itself awash with fit and well-fed young people on SSI and other forms of “disability” for, in effect, “anxiety disorders and bad backs.”

Reminds me of what I presciently said about Marxism when I was but a mere slip of a lad, “When you work each according to his abilities and reward each according to his needs, all you wind up with is a nation filled with gluttonous citizens with chronic bad backs.”

Our court system has been rewarding scammers for decades now and the costs are starting to kill us.

PTSD was once called “shell shock” and TODAY, as in yesteryear, REAL sufferers of actual PTSD require a lifetime of institutionalized care. They cannot hold down jobs, balance check books, walk down the street in daylight, however, today our courts have chosen to reward scammers who may actually be suffering from very real “anxiety disorders,” by allowing them to be diagnosed with PTSD.

That’s a scam, plain and simple. At least it WILL BE when the government gets around to shutting down this loophole, remaking the standards for that claim, or setting them back to their earlier default positions.

This past January 7th, the New York Daily News reported;

“Eighty greedy NYPD and FDNY retirees, whose departments suffered devastating losses on 9/11, collected millions of dollars in disability-pension benefits by pretending they were at Ground Zero and suffered emotional trauma, authorities said Tuesday.

“They were among 106 alleged scammers arrested in a $400 million Social Security rip-off — one of the largest in history — that also included city Correction officers and a former Nassau County cop.

“Many of them claimed they couldn’t sleep, do simple arithmetic or even leave their own home — but investigators found that they’d been piloting helicopters, riding Jet Skis, teaching karate, deep-sea fishing and even running half-marathons.

“Up to 1,000 people could be involved in the scam, “and I can say that ultimately, the estimates add up to $400 million,” Vance said, noting the investigation is far from over.

The Post first revealed in 2010 that two dozen retired cops were under investigation for claiming mental illness to receive Social Security disability payments while still holding gun permits.

Their disability applications “indicated that they were incapable of owning firearms,” said NYPD Chief of Internal Affairs Charles Campisi.

“However, when we dug deeper and we checked the forms that they filed with the Police Department in order to get pistol permits, they indicated that they were of sound mind. So we had a discrepancy.”

Did you see that?! “Up to 1,000 people could be involved in the scam!”

And these are Police and Officers and firefighters who have been documented in numerous cases of going “above and beyond the call of duty” at various incidents. You see how quickly, the honored hero becomes the “greedy pensioner”? Count on a LOT more of this, because so many of us have succumbed to the incentives for claiming disability status.

ONE very real problem is that so many such government workers feel entitled...they feel “they’re OWED” something extra and a tax-free disability pension nicely fits the bill.

A few years earlier dozens of LIRR workers wrangled disability pensions from a handful of unscrupulous physicians, one of whom has been sentenced to 8 years in prison for his part in the estimated $1 BILLION scam!

The “dirty little secret” of Giuliani’s “Welfare Reform” was that as the welfare rolls shrunk, the disability rolls exploded!

No claim has been as abused and over-used as “PTSD.” Partly because the government and some mental health professionals have allowed anxiety disorders to be classified as PTSD...for now.

In government work, ALL government work, “You’re the GOOD guy UNTIL they make you the BAD guy.” That is, when an agency needs you to work a ton of overtime, you’re a “team player,” by working the extra hours. When the budget inevitably busts, the administration is going to blame…the lowly worker.

SAME here, just as Captain Renault was “shocked to find gambling going on in this establishment,” in the film Casablanca, once the lid s blown off the extent of the PTSD claims over the past decade, a LOT of yesterday’s heroes are going to wind up tomorrow’s villains.


I know a lot of people are squeamish about such things, but the truth often does hurt.

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