Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
It’s nice to see our government off the “Stupid Train” for once. Swedish officials continue to require Fredrik Jansson of Skelleftea to verify that he has trouble walking after his leg was surgically amputated ten years ago. Jansson who suffered the procedure as part of his bid to fight off bone cancer, finds the regulation ridiculous. He is mandated to see a physician to verify the loss every three years.
A prosthetic leg is not an option as Jonasson doesn’t think he would be able to manage without a disabled parking permit since he would have to carry shopping bags using crutches, and be forced to walk some distance to his car.
“It defies all common sense,” Jansson said. “I go down to Umea once every three years and have a doctor establish my leg is still gone.”
eniobob
i’ve had people call the police because i parked in a handicapped spot. i’ve even been pulled over because the cop didn’t know they made handicapped motorcycle plates.
it’s just funny as many times that i’ve been told by judges that driving isn’t a right it’s a privilege, to then be in a position where parking is a right.
“He doesn’t have to prove he’s alive every three years. He has to go to a physician in another town and prove he’s an amputee every three years. ”
I do not agree with your second sentence. According to the article linked he “said the local government forces him to prove every three years that he still has trouble walking in order to keep his disabled parking permit”.
Roco:
“it is not foolishness, what if the guy died from a car accident or natural causes? People abuse those stickers and his relatives/friends might use it or sell it if he died.”
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He doesn’t have to prove he’s alive every three years. He has to go to a physician in another town and prove he’s an amputee every three years. That’s the Swedish government’s idiocy which is completely lost on you.
Lol I’m not trying to make Roco understand anything. And as far as empathy I don’t think its possible for a sociopath to feel empathy. He will never understand why so many people argue with him and don’t just agree with his soulless view of humanity. Now I’m just Blessing Him Out. Roco, here’s the definition,
Definition of BLESS OUT
chiefly Midland
transitive verb
: to rebuke sternly : scold
from Mirriam- Webster
Gene, Roco doesn’t have a fine understanding of the English language.
Trying to get someone who’s primary religious doctrine is selfishness to understand empathy is like trying to get lead to be gold.
Mike, I just got home and decided to look at this post to see if there were intelligent things said. I really enjoy the sharing of ideas and experiences from just about all who post here. You said everything to Roco that I would like to have said. Hehehe only much more succinctly. Roco, because I know you have a lot of trouble understanding the big words. Succinct means “in a few words”. Succinctly is an adverb and I wont go in the grammar, but do as I suggested last night and spend some time with a dictionary and you might try some counseling as I think you might have a severe mental illness.
Rocco,you wrote earlier today “By the way Jo, tell your brother inlaw to find a real problem in his life. Having one good leg isnt enough to bitch about. Tell him to go to a Muscular Dystrophy summer camp for kids and spend a month or a week as a counselor. Missing a leg will pale in comparison to what he sees there.”
My point with you has never been about the Swedish or US governments silly requirements. We expect silliness from government. My point is that you are so lacking in understanding of your fellow man. Permits are not passed out according to Roco’s Sliding Scale of Pitiableness, thank God. . Lol and I just can’t believe you have ever thought about spending a week in a “Muscular Dystrophy summer camp for kids” except as a stinging comment about the thought process of a man you don’t know. You are one of the smallest humans I have ever known of and I once worked for Atilla the Hun. Go, Run, Hurry, you need a soul attachment. Maybe its too late for Roco but for anyone else out there who compares one persons handicap to some others handicap and you judge one to be less than the other and therefore no handicap at all. Take heed that you are entering into Rocos hell. Really Roco I pity you immensely and therefore according to your scale you are the most handicapped of all. and I can see that you need to have the last word but that just adds to your pitiability.
Frankly,
If his real name was Newt, it COULD grow back.
Mespo:
it is not foolishness, what if the guy died from a car accident or natural causes? People abuse those stickers and his relatives/friends might use it or sell it if he died. That would take parking spaces away from people who actually need one. Like Mike when he was having heart problems.
Maybe you should look in the mirror for your answer.
The guy is wrong and you are wrong to have a problem with this.
One more question, why should a person with an electric wheelchair need a spot next to the building? Their spaces should be at the end of the rows.
Mike Spindell:
You are doing the same thing by chastising me.
The point is, there is nothing wrong with going every 3, 5, or 7 years to have a handicapped sticker updated. I dont think the government is wrong on this one.
The point utterly lost on Roco is that it’s not the inconvenience to the citizen we’re talking about, but the foolishness of the request in the first place. Will he ever cease to be an amputee. Only the fool — or the government — could expect an amorphous answer to that question.
“By the way Jo, tell your brother inlaw to find a real problem in his life. Having one good leg isnt enough to bitch about. Tell him to go to a Muscular Dystrophy summer camp for kids and spend a month or a week as a counselor. Missing a leg will pale in comparison to what he sees there.”
Roco,
There it all is in plain sight, your own blind prejudice, plain to see. How in hell do you know what pain this man is suffering? You compare it to others to diminish his problems and elevate your own interests above them. During the six years I was dying, popping nitros just to relieve the angina, people looked at me: six foot, 180, unlined face and good features and were constantly telling me i looked great. I didn’t disabuse them of that. However, I felt like shit and was barely capable of performing the simplest tasks, even getting out of a chair. Yes I could still drive because that took little effort with an automatic transmission, a stick was a different story. Getting in and out of a car and going up the slightest inclines were a major problem though. But damn, I looked great.
Using your warped sense of values, anyone who isn’t Stephen Hawking does not have the right to sympathy or empathy. Empathy, especially, because that connotes putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and forgetting your own travails. You are so focused on viewing the world through your narrow perspective that you have little time contemplating problems other than of you and yours.
“Where is your compassion Mike?”
Roco,
I’ll tell you where. Six years ago when I was diagnosed with CHF I couldn’t walk more than 30 feet w/o taking nitroglycerin. I popped nitro about 300 times monthly, which is considered a lot. I had a handicapped sticker in NY and I have one now in FL. It’s been about a a year since my heart transplant and I can walk miles. The sticker is still good but I don’t use handicapped spots because I no longer need them. The sticker comes up for renewal in 2 months and it won’t be renewed.
What you miss in this is not the literal fact that the man has to renew the sticker, but that mechanisms aren’t in place that can give approval based on individualization. I ran large social service programs and though that was over a decade ago the capability existed then to have dealt with this
via procedure and computer. That it isn’t reflects sloppy management.
To head of your next complaint, no private industry wouldn’t do it better.
Why, because despite your pre-judgments based on years of inhaling anti-government agitprop, private industry is generally more concerned with making a profit, than doing a good job. This is especially true when there is no measure of customer satisfaction to impose on its work.
As Ben pointed out, people die. A 3 to 5 year review is not a big deal.
A person missing a leg is not all that handicapped and should quit whining about having to head to the agency every three years for an evaluation.
A kid in a hospital bed on a ventilator dying of muscular dystrophy is handicapped. A person missing a leg has a small problem.
This guy is a whiny little bitch and should suck up his 3 year visitation to the “man”.
By the way Jo, tell your brother inlaw to find a real problem in his life. Having one good leg isnt enough to bitch about. Tell him to go to a Muscular Dystrophy summer camp for kids and spend a month or a week as a counselor. Missing a leg will pale in comparison to what he sees there.
Jo for your information a good power wheelchair is around $25,000 to $30,000 but you can buy a used van for under $20,000. A new lift will run you around $5,000 installed.
You’re right about the three year review also. The disability determination services that adjudicate Social Security disability claims set diaries of three, five, or seven years. Rarely, if they expect improvement, they’ll set a one year diary. Disability has to be expected to last more than a year to be approved, but some people with retroactivity and possible improvement might be diaried for a year.
When disability is reviewed, SSA is not determining the case anew. For cessation, it must cite recovery and what the improvements are.
My comment about handicap parking did not mean all disability beneficiaries qualify for handicap stickers. I was just finding it ironic that a Social Security Office – dealing with handicapped people – would only be afforded one handicap parking space.
Statistics on SSA.gov indicate that Social Security medical reviews rarely result in cessation. Many cases are ceased by the District Offices, but almost everybody who appeals is reinstated by Administrative Law Judges, who find for the appellant 85% of the time, according to SSA.gov.
SSA would be better off stopping all medical reviews and assigning those Claims Specialists to reviewing the earnings records of beneficiaries. People who go back to work prove, after a Trial Work Period, that they’ve recovered if they sustain earnings over a certain threshhold that increases each year. Examining people whose earnings returned to substantial would be more productive than examing the medical records of the entire population.
pete:
“. the fun i’ve had is with the motorcycle handicap tags”
You got me scratching my head on this one,being a rider myself.
Ben, the Social Security Disability rules say that for a disability that might get better, the review comes after three years. For those disabilities that are unlikely to get better, the review comes after seven years. If you get past the review as either ‘not improved’ or ‘worse,’ then it is unlikely you will be reviewed again. Ever.
Also, not every qualifying disabling condition makes one eligible for a handicap placard. For example, the person with a mental disability or upper body disability that may keep you out of the workplace, but does not affect mobility. For example, I know a guy who had been a construction worker. He picked up a wire at work he thought was dead, but the electrician had failed to turn off the power. He was zapped with 7,500 volts which did not kill him, but turned both arms into bacon–literally. He lost both arms at the shoulder, but there is nothing wrong with his legs and he can out-walk or outrun most of us on this site. He does not need or want handicap courtesy parking. He is, however, on Social Security Disability and Medicare benefits. It is rather hard for a carpenter to swing a hammer when he only has tiny stumps for arms and cannot even feed himself.
Social Security in the US has similar requirements. Even the most handicapped people have to be reviewed at least every seven years. The thought is generally that technology may have improved. As a moderate example, heart patients may have gotten stents or surgical procedures that didn’t previously exist.
Also, recipients of parking stickers and beneficiaries of disability might have died. Some nephew could be using that parking sticker.
Oddly, I know of a Social Security Office that only has one handicapped parking spot in front of it, because that’s all the city will grant.
you’re all wasting your time on roco you also failed to realize that rocos life is so miserable that he feels a need to pass that misery onto others every chance he gets. the good news is that karma is a itch that will be scratched and when rocos turn comes and it will in one form or another. i hope he remembers his posts on this story… and roco this is coming from someone who is NOT HANDICAPPED on the outside. but inside im doomed here’s a list for you…
1. hiv from a blood transfusion years ago
2. cancer
3. severe asthma
4.neuropathy
oh and thanks to the hiv i have a host of inactive conditions also tb, hepc, and severe anemia
do i need to go on about the carpal tunnel syndrome from yrs of typing due to working? how about this one thanks to the neuropathy i can’t feel the skin on my legs?
Where is the compassion in assuming that any man with a missing leg necessarily requires the use of handicapped parking? Of course many in that condition do, but many others do not.
The article linked had very little information, but it seemed to me that the parking authorities are looking at ability function rather than using a “checklist” approach. So the answer to the question: “how might one such as Mr. Jannson ”disqualify” for the benefit,” is that his ability to function might improve to the point that he no longer needs the benefit. Of course, Mr. Jannson may never realize that improvement, but the parking authorities have no way to know his level of functioning at a given time without a system of review.
Sorry to join this so late, but this story is crazy. One would think that just lifting the pant leg to show the missing leg would be enough for most compassionate people.
Roco,
If you see someone abuse the handicapped parking, call the police, but don’t complain about real handicapped people utilizing a needed service.