Comment by ColinCera | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ColinCera | Hacker News Reader

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There's quite a lot of disability fraud going on, some of it downright shocking.

Example #1: A couple of weeks ago, my brother, an orthopedist, had a 26-year-old man come in for an ankle sprain. In the course of working up the ankle -- mildly sprained, no problem -- he found that the patient doesn't work and is on 100% disability. Why? Because of acne. Yes, acne. Apparently when he was 19 or 20 he had such severe acne that someone deemed him unable to work and he was approved for 100% disability. Even though his skin now is perfectly clear, with some minor acne scarring the only remaining blemish, this man will likely never work a day in his life -- he will be drawing a disability check from the government for the next 60 years.

Example #2: Another brother is a police officer. Or was. He recently retired, at age 52, and now will draw a $70,000/year pension for the next few decades, which is a separate but related issue. But he tells me that -- even though he didn't personally take advantage of this ploy -- it is routine for retiring police officers and firefighters to go to "friendly" doctors and have those doctors certify them as disabled so they can get disability checks in addition to their pensions. It's called "taking the disability topper" or "getting DA'd."

This stuff is very common, especially here in Chicago with the unions running a fairly corrupt machine. I really wish something could be done. We're taxed hard and money is spent in reckless ways by the government like this. Doesn't seem fair to those of us who actually work to make this money.

Worse, there is no solution is site. Who is going to arrest these crooked cops? Other cops? They're on the take as well.

>He recently retired, at age 52, and now will draw a $70,000/year pension for the next few decades

Illinois has a pension crisis we can't get out of because of this. These union handouts and insane pensions that are 100% unaffordable. Right now every man, woman, and child in Illinois owes $26,000 in taxes to pay these pensions out. Who is going to pay this stuff?

Citizens should be able to pursue small qui tam suits against other citizens for things like welfare fraud. It's worked very well for Medicare fraud, I'd like to see it implemented on a micro scale.

Do you think the process of pursuing small qui tam suits is automatable enough to make easy enough for Joe Q. Citizen?

> Worse, there is no solution is site. Who is going to arrest these crooked cops? Other cops?

The fraud burden typically lies with the agency that's cutting the checks. Other agencies (IRS, SEC) deal with fraud in their specific areas and do not rely on police except the very specific step of arresting the individual, which in these cases may never happen.

The disability topper was a huge scandal for the Long Island Rail Road in recent years:

<< About 600 Long Island Rail Road retirees will lose their disability benefits after a federal agency voted last week to halt the payments, amid a sweeping investigation into what prosecutors have called a major disability fraud scheme, according to agency documents and officials.

The agency, the United States Railroad Retirement Board, which over more than a decade granted disability benefits to hundreds of railroad retirees based on fraudulent medical evidence with little scrutiny, took the action on Thursday during a five-minute meeting at its headquarters in Chicago. The vote approved procedures under which the board will cut off the benefits, which, officials said, are costing the agency $2 million a month. >>

A bunch of the people involved have gone to prison over this fraud:

<< The first terminations came several weeks after the doctor who submitted what prosecutors have said was the bogus medical evidence underlying the applications of the roughly 600 retired railroad workers pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to fraud and conspiracy. The doctor, Peter J. Ajemian, told the judge in January that the retirees were not in fact disabled. …

Dr. Ajemian, who was sentenced to eight years in prison, is among 24 people — including retirees, another doctor and two facilitators — who since 2011 have pleaded guilty to federal charges resulting from of the investigation. Charges against eight other people indicted in the case are pending, and the investigation by the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors in Manhattan, officials have said, is continuing. >>

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/nyregion/600-long-island-r...

It's pretty disgusting that those that are supposed to be stopping crimes are knowingly and intentionally committing fraud to get additional money from the state. Between this and the recent civil asset forfeiture scandals, I'm amazed people aren't more outraged.

Outrage requires awareness as a first step. Our mainstream sources of journalism are often too preoccupied with party talking points when covering welfare programs to get to the real issues of corruption, fraud, and systemic brokenness underneath. It seems to be slowly changing, however. Articles like this one are a good start.

I would argue that police are inherently no more ethical than the average reasonable citizen.

The solution of course is transparency. Stop treating police as holier than thou. They're just government workers. "Trust but verify" works wonders for keeping people honest. Good people as well as bad, because it removes temptation.

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