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"The pilots who have had their records examined are military veterans who informed the Federal Aviation Administration that they were suitable to fly, but didn'

"The pilots who have had their records examined are military veterans who informed the Federal Aviation Administration that they were suitable to fly, but didn't disclose that they were also receiving veterans benefits for various disabilities that could prevent them from effectively sitting in a pilot's seat." This is just my anecdotal observations, but I've seen that military veterans are extremely adept at gaming the system to their benefit. They are able to maximize disability benefits as well as GI Bill benefits. I've known and worked with multiple veterans and each one of them gamed these systems to maximum benefit. It also appeared that they coached each other on how to obtain maximum benefit. With that said, I wouldn't be surprised if the health issues in this article were largely exaggerated specifically for the purpose of maximizing benefits.

nickpeterson 3y ago
I’m not a vet, but I wonder if it comes from working in an environment that is so massive, at times wasteful, and your contributions feel insignificant. I think a lot of people could convince themselves that if they don’t take advantage of something, someone else will.
- Geisterde 3y ago
  The moment you realize debt is devalued over time and begin taking on debt to acquire hard assets, like anybody who is smart with their money, you are gaming the system. Its not to say people aren't legitimately creating value or building good businesses, but those businesses necessarily must pay the minimum required taxes to be competitive in the market against someone else who will. Politicians invest in stocks that their forthcoming policies will predictably pump. The whole of it all is gaming the system in one way or another. I'm a vet and I need to get back to spamming the VA to increase my disability benefits even though I feel the best I ever have now.
  - dh2022 3y ago
    Debt is devalued in time when interest rates raise. The last couple of years aside, debt value has been increasing since interest rates peaked in late 1970s.
    - Geisterde 3y ago
      Debt is devalued because the money is getting cheaper, I know in 20 years my debt will be easier to manage even though the payments in the nominal denomination of currency has not changed. Inflation is programmatic in a monetary system where currency can only be created through debt, if there werent inflation then every existing dollar would eventually disappear to pay interest to the fed, and there would still be outstanding debt. The practical implications of this are that even if there is a touch of inflation then it can cause a contagion even that shuts down the banks.
- goodbyesf 3y ago
  > I’m not a vet, but I wonder if it comes from working in an environment that is so massive, at times wasteful, and your contributions feel insignificant Simple formula ( greed + opportunity ). Everyone from politicians to doctors to lowly grunts game the system if they can. Just because you are elected, are educated or wear a uniform doesn't change your innate human nature. You just hide it better. If you can get disability and work too, why wouldn't you. It's like eating your cake and having it too. > I think a lot of people could convince themselves that if they don’t take advantage of something, someone else will. Not themselves. Others. They will try to convince you with that rationalization.
- justrealist 3y ago
  The negative PR from wrongfully denying a vet benefits is so bad, and the system is completely un-incentivized to be cost-effective, that there are basically 0 real eligibility tests. Any politician (or bureaucrat) who says "you know, maybe we should be denying disability to 20% of these veterans" is going to be strung up and quartered. So, nobody tries.
  - 23B1 3y ago
    I'd wager that a big part of the PR hazard is that American taxpayers supported the war(s) – and therefore there is a sense of obligation amongst them that vets should get whatever support they think they need. Not saying grift is excusable, but there's a lot of checks and balances on this system – not the least of which if a veteran is caught lying, he loses his benefits and may even have to pay them back.
    - justrealist 3y ago
      > not the least of which if a veteran is caught lying, he loses his benefits and may even have to pay them back If you claim PTSD, trauma, or back/knee/joint pain without fabricating the material circumstances of your injury (lying about where you were stationed or what you were doing), there is a 0% chance you will be accused, much less convicted, of lying. Look for a single vet disability fraud case (and there aren't many, period) where the conviction was for anything other than outright fabrication of service record.
  - bitwalker 3y ago
    This is said so confidently, but clearly with little to no experience with the military or the VA to back it up. No vet is receiving benefits without something to back up their disability rating, even if that rating is higher than it seemingly "should" be. Some disabilities are easier to establish than others, because the issue causing the disability is so prevalent in the service that the military has little basis to deny them. Hearing loss is a common one. That said, I'm a vet, with significant hearing loss due to my time in (I was an F-16 maintainer on the flightline, an extremely intense noise environment). I'm not eligible for _any_ disability rating at all, because I did not report issues while I was still in the service; but hearing loss issues often take time to become apparent, and it's not like we were being tested for it. It was not uncommon for someone to forget their earplugs (the second layer of hearing protection we had, under our headset), and be essentially forced to go out on the flightline anyway to handle some task around running engines. These events would be downplayed, but just one instance of that can cause irreversible hearing loss. But that's just a specific issue relevant to my time in the service. The bottom line is that unless you report every little thing that _might_ cause an issue later, you're going to be up shit creek when you get out and find out that something you were exposed to during your service is causing an expensive medical issue that you have to deal with. There are all kinds of fucked up things people had to do while they were in, that they struggle to get compensation for now that the consequences are catching up, because the issues aren't straightforwardly attributable to some event during your service, like with combat injuries. Burn pits are the most notorious one - you have advocates like Jon Stewart fighting in Congress to pass laws to support vets who were forced to work those pits and are now battling all kinds of complications. If anyone should be an obvious beneficiary of the disability system, beyond those with combat injuries, it should be those folks - but they are largely left hanging in the wind. In the case of burn pits especially, the military _knew_ there were consequences to having soldiers work them, but chalked it up as the cost of war. Frankly, from what I've observed, once vets are out of the service, our country largely gives them the middle finger when they struggle with mental or physical health issues. I say "them" here, because I'm not a combat veteran, and I'm lucky that I had it pretty easy during my tenure (2009-2015), but for many, that is very much not the case. Yeah, nobody in Congress is going to stand up in front of everyone and say "let's make disability benefits harder to obtain" - but I have no doubt they'd have few, if any, qualms about doing it behind closed doors.
23B1 3y ago
Am a military veteran. While I know there's plenty of grift on this front, I'd like to point out that you have to become extremely adept at gaming the system even if you have a legitimate injury/disability. The games the VA plays to deny benefits are just as cynical and brazen as many other things the government writ large has done to conceal dangers to veterans – dangers that can have far, far-reaching health consequences. I welcome you to look up the development and deployment of Agent Orange for an example that is still killing people today. Edit: https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/publications/agent-orange/agent-orange-summer-2015/diabetes.asp https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/publications/agent...
- mattw2121 3y ago
  I am well aware of Agent Orange and am also aware that anyone that was anywhere close to Agent Orange figures out a way to correlate every single health issue they experience to Agent Orange. I'm not saying that Agent Orange wasn't a problem and, of course, it caused health issues for many people. What I am saying is that a 80 year old man, that is 100 pounds overweight, who develops diabetes didn't necessarily get diabetes from Agent Orange exposure.
  - 23B1 3y ago
    Yes, that is exactly the same logic the VA uses to deny claims to people who did in fact get diabetes from Agent Orange exposure. Looks like you have a bright future in claims adjustment! ;-) Edit: There's plenty of evidence connecting Agent Orange exposure to a whole host of illnesses that only manifest later in life – including Diabetes. It's even on the VA's own site: https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/publications/agent-orange/agent-orange-summer-2015/diabetes.asp https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/publications/agent...
    - brianwawok 3y ago
      How do you conclusively attribute diabetes to agent orange 40 years after the fact? What test do you run, and what scientific methodology do you employ? We are real bad at connecting dots that take more than a few years to happen. So many other things happen to us every day. Even if some bad action doubles your odds of a certain outcome.. that means it is still 50/50 if the original thing "caused" your bad outcome.
tiahura 3y ago
As someone who practices law in a disability-adjacent field, I can assure you that gaming ssdi isn’t restricted to former military.
kotaKat 3y ago
It's the FAA's normal mental health brigade horseshit, except this time it's the FAA snooping around in VA records just because they can. It looks like the veterans being targeted have various concerns like PTSD, which the FAA finds that as soon as you even think you're depressed, they want to revoke your pilots license because they think you'll immediately pull Some Shit in the air. The average person has no clue how bad mental health is in the aviation sector and how hard it has to be hidden so they can actually keep doing what they love -- to fly. See also: https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/pilots-crying-out-help-pilots-criticize-faa-outdated-prohibitive-mental-health-policies/ https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/pilots-crying-out-help... > the FAA has subjected him to costly frequent drug tests, and doctor's visits with FAA-approved experts who don't accept insurance > the FAA wouldn't accept other doctor's notes saying that he was perfectly fine to fly a plane The FAA throws up some massive gates as soon as you get flagged like this and forces you to go to a battery of doctors and psychs that only they can apparently decide your fate.
- briffle 3y ago
  Right, its not like hundreds of people's lives are in these pilot's hands. I can't imagine what a depressed pilot might do.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525
  - tycho-newman 3y ago
    Perfectly competent pilots have killed more people than depressed ones since the beginning of flight. Empirically, non-depressed pilots are more of a risk to the public. But they don't get this kind of stigma.
    - kkielhofner 3y ago
      It’s also one of the more glaring issues still present in regard to mental health stigmatization - that people with mental health issues are a danger to others. The overwhelming majority of people experiencing mental health issues are only a danger to themselves (worst case). The differences in suicide rates compared to murder-suicide rates back this up but per usual extremely rare cases or murder-suicide grab headlines while the 125 suicides per day on average in the US are completely unknown to anyone other than the people personally impacted by them. Not only are murder-suicides sensational, the “murder” component bypasses the otherwise standard media practice of not reporting on suicides because of the data on upticks in additional suicides due to reporting.
dghughes 3y ago
> I've seen that military veterans are extremely adept at gaming the system to their benefit. They are able to maximize disability benefits as well as GI Bill benefits. I'm not in the USA but really to me that's just seems like they are getting what they should. Any citizen of any country should get medical care free of charge. Military veterans whether their issue is from combat or not I think should get all the care they can. If the system is working against you and you can find ways to fight back and help others that is OK with me.
- mattw2121 3y ago
  These benefits (and the gaming of them) are not about receiving medical care. These veterans already get free medical care from the VA. It's about monetary payments. They game the VA disability system to get paid.
  - docandrew 3y ago
    I’m not sure how “gaming” it is possible when the VA either performs (or contracts out) medical exams for a veteran’s specific claim and determines whether the veteran is eligible or not. It’s not like they just take a veteran’s word for it.
    - sedivy94 3y ago
      I work on a military base and can attest to this. Many prior enlisted (veterans) feel that they get shafted (screwed or taken advantage of) by the contract between themselves and USG during their service. Their pay is low and transitioning back to a civilian lifestyle is incredibly difficult, despite their compulsory, Congress-mandated transition assistance training. Maximizing their disability claims is one way of getting what they deserve. The VA has a disability rating system that goes from 0% to 100%. Obtaining a 100% disability rating guarantees a certain amount of monthly income for life. The step increase in pay from 80% disability to 100% disability is large. There’s also a logarithmic function that makes it increasingly difficult to raise your disability rating after each disability claim. Hypothetically, losing your left leg might qualify for 50% disability, losing a second leg might qualify for 75%, and then losing an arm might qualify for 87.5%. Pretty horrendous. That being said, many service members aim to hack the system by making disability claims for everything under the sun. Service members often collect disabilities such as arthritis, lumbar disc degradation, knee injuries, sleep apnea, and depression. Like Pokémon - gotta catch ‘em all.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
> I've known and worked with multiple veterans and each one of them gamed these systems to maximum benefit. So exactly like private employees & companies? I'm not sure we should be expecting humans not to game systems to their own benefit. Isn't that basic human nature?
- mattw2121 3y ago
  Yes, I think we should expect people to act with integrity. When they don't we should call them out. I'm all for social programs to help people in need, but I end up opposing most of the proposed social programs. Why is this? Because people game them. If people acted with integrity, and only people that truly needed assistance utilized social programs, then I think you'd find far less people oppose them.
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    Why is it not integrity to use the system to maximize the benefit to myself? Insurance carriers and the medical-industrial complex are notoriously byzantine, and so if anyone can navigate those waters and improve their outcomes, and extract the maximum value of care for themselves, then I think that is exactly what one should be expected to do within the bounds of the system they are given. There is nothing dishonest or "gaming" about it.
    - mattw2121 3y ago
      When you lie about medical conditions, that is not acting with integrity. If you believe that lying to achieve maximum personal outcomes is, in fact, acting with integrity, then our definition of integrity is vastly different.
      - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
        It was termed "gaming" and not "lying". Where are you seeing lies?
  - 3y ago
lp0_on_fire 3y ago
> This is just my anecdotal observations, but I've seen that military veterans are extremely adept at gaming the system to their benefit. They are able to maximize disability benefits as well as GI Bill benefits. I've known and worked with multiple veterans and each one of them gamed these systems to maximum benefit. "gamed" is a very loaded term that suggests something untoward is happening as opposed to people just trying to get the benefits they're entitled to as Veterans. Do you have any evidence that the people you've observed are doing something shady or do you just think they're getting more than they deserve? > It also appeared that they coached each other on how to obtain maximum benefit. Is it "gaming" the system when I offer my friend advice on how to navigate the byzantine health insurance system in the US?
- mattw2121 3y ago
  Yes, I have anecdotal evidence that people are gaming the system to get more than they deserve. I have directly observed multiple Vietnam Vets gaming the Agent Orange system to get 90-100% disability. The would visit multiple doctors to get the wording they needed to supply evidence that some health issue was related to Agent Orange. Their goal was to get a doctor to write down that a particular health issue "might" be related to Agent Orange. Once they achieved that, they would add that health issue on the list of other health issues. Each one would get them 5-20% disability.
  - lp0_on_fire 3y ago
    To be be clear, you are not a physician who has examined these Vietnam Vets and have determined that their issues are 100% unrelated to Agent Orange?
  - mattw2121 3y ago
    (responding to to sibling comment) No, I'm not a doctor that has examined them. I have been told by these people that they want to maximize their disability payments and they can do that by claiming things are caused by agent orange. I've been told by them that they will shop around the diagnosis until they get something in writing they can use. I have been told by these people that they don't care if it is related to agent orange or not, as long as they can get a doctor to write it down.
hedora 3y ago
What happened to medical record confidentiality? Presumably this is a slow normalization of deviance play, and using people’s medical records against them will be commonplace soon. Starting with vets is particularly cynical, but sadly unsurprising. Anyway, since these records can be used to screw vets over, can vets also access the statistics they’d need to prove safety violations and other forms of negligence in the chain of command?
- tycho-newman 3y ago
  It is routine for government agencies to audit medical claims records for waste, fraud,and abuse. These uses are well-defined in existing American medical privacy laws.

nickpeterson 3y ago

I’m not a vet, but I wonder if it comes from working in an environment that is so massive, at times wasteful, and your contributions feel insignificant. I think a lot of people could convince themselves that if they don’t take advantage of something, someone else will.

Geisterde 3y ago
The moment you realize debt is devalued over time and begin taking on debt to acquire hard assets, like anybody who is smart with their money, you are gaming the system. Its not to say people aren't legitimately creating value or building good businesses, but those businesses necessarily must pay the minimum required taxes to be competitive in the market against someone else who will. Politicians invest in stocks that their forthcoming policies will predictably pump. The whole of it all is gaming the system in one way or another. I'm a vet and I need to get back to spamming the VA to increase my disability benefits even though I feel the best I ever have now.
- dh2022 3y ago
  Debt is devalued in time when interest rates raise. The last couple of years aside, debt value has been increasing since interest rates peaked in late 1970s.
  - Geisterde 3y ago
    Debt is devalued because the money is getting cheaper, I know in 20 years my debt will be easier to manage even though the payments in the nominal denomination of currency has not changed. Inflation is programmatic in a monetary system where currency can only be created through debt, if there werent inflation then every existing dollar would eventually disappear to pay interest to the fed, and there would still be outstanding debt. The practical implications of this are that even if there is a touch of inflation then it can cause a contagion even that shuts down the banks.
goodbyesf 3y ago
> I’m not a vet, but I wonder if it comes from working in an environment that is so massive, at times wasteful, and your contributions feel insignificant Simple formula ( greed + opportunity ). Everyone from politicians to doctors to lowly grunts game the system if they can. Just because you are elected, are educated or wear a uniform doesn't change your innate human nature. You just hide it better. If you can get disability and work too, why wouldn't you. It's like eating your cake and having it too. > I think a lot of people could convince themselves that if they don’t take advantage of something, someone else will. Not themselves. Others. They will try to convince you with that rationalization.
justrealist 3y ago
The negative PR from wrongfully denying a vet benefits is so bad, and the system is completely un-incentivized to be cost-effective, that there are basically 0 real eligibility tests. Any politician (or bureaucrat) who says "you know, maybe we should be denying disability to 20% of these veterans" is going to be strung up and quartered. So, nobody tries.
- 23B1 3y ago
  I'd wager that a big part of the PR hazard is that American taxpayers supported the war(s) – and therefore there is a sense of obligation amongst them that vets should get whatever support they think they need. Not saying grift is excusable, but there's a lot of checks and balances on this system – not the least of which if a veteran is caught lying, he loses his benefits and may even have to pay them back.
  - justrealist 3y ago
    > not the least of which if a veteran is caught lying, he loses his benefits and may even have to pay them back If you claim PTSD, trauma, or back/knee/joint pain without fabricating the material circumstances of your injury (lying about where you were stationed or what you were doing), there is a 0% chance you will be accused, much less convicted, of lying. Look for a single vet disability fraud case (and there aren't many, period) where the conviction was for anything other than outright fabrication of service record.
- bitwalker 3y ago
  This is said so confidently, but clearly with little to no experience with the military or the VA to back it up. No vet is receiving benefits without something to back up their disability rating, even if that rating is higher than it seemingly "should" be. Some disabilities are easier to establish than others, because the issue causing the disability is so prevalent in the service that the military has little basis to deny them. Hearing loss is a common one. That said, I'm a vet, with significant hearing loss due to my time in (I was an F-16 maintainer on the flightline, an extremely intense noise environment). I'm not eligible for _any_ disability rating at all, because I did not report issues while I was still in the service; but hearing loss issues often take time to become apparent, and it's not like we were being tested for it. It was not uncommon for someone to forget their earplugs (the second layer of hearing protection we had, under our headset), and be essentially forced to go out on the flightline anyway to handle some task around running engines. These events would be downplayed, but just one instance of that can cause irreversible hearing loss. But that's just a specific issue relevant to my time in the service. The bottom line is that unless you report every little thing that _might_ cause an issue later, you're going to be up shit creek when you get out and find out that something you were exposed to during your service is causing an expensive medical issue that you have to deal with. There are all kinds of fucked up things people had to do while they were in, that they struggle to get compensation for now that the consequences are catching up, because the issues aren't straightforwardly attributable to some event during your service, like with combat injuries. Burn pits are the most notorious one - you have advocates like Jon Stewart fighting in Congress to pass laws to support vets who were forced to work those pits and are now battling all kinds of complications. If anyone should be an obvious beneficiary of the disability system, beyond those with combat injuries, it should be those folks - but they are largely left hanging in the wind. In the case of burn pits especially, the military _knew_ there were consequences to having soldiers work them, but chalked it up as the cost of war. Frankly, from what I've observed, once vets are out of the service, our country largely gives them the middle finger when they struggle with mental or physical health issues. I say "them" here, because I'm not a combat veteran, and I'm lucky that I had it pretty easy during my tenure (2009-2015), but for many, that is very much not the case. Yeah, nobody in Congress is going to stand up in front of everyone and say "let's make disability benefits harder to obtain" - but I have no doubt they'd have few, if any, qualms about doing it behind closed doors.

23B1 3y ago

Am a military veteran. While I know there's plenty of grift on this front, I'd like to point out that you have to become extremely adept at gaming the system even if you have a legitimate injury/disability. The games the VA plays to deny benefits are just as cynical and brazen as many other things the government writ large has done to conceal dangers to veterans – dangers that can have far, far-reaching health consequences. I welcome you to look up the development and deployment of Agent Orange for an example that is still killing people today. Edit: https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/publications/agent-orange/agent-orange-summer-2015/diabetes.asp https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/publications/agent...

mattw2121 3y ago
I am well aware of Agent Orange and am also aware that anyone that was anywhere close to Agent Orange figures out a way to correlate every single health issue they experience to Agent Orange. I'm not saying that Agent Orange wasn't a problem and, of course, it caused health issues for many people. What I am saying is that a 80 year old man, that is 100 pounds overweight, who develops diabetes didn't necessarily get diabetes from Agent Orange exposure.
- 23B1 3y ago
  Yes, that is exactly the same logic the VA uses to deny claims to people who did in fact get diabetes from Agent Orange exposure. Looks like you have a bright future in claims adjustment! ;-) Edit: There's plenty of evidence connecting Agent Orange exposure to a whole host of illnesses that only manifest later in life – including Diabetes. It's even on the VA's own site: https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/publications/agent-orange/agent-orange-summer-2015/diabetes.asp https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/publications/agent...
  - brianwawok 3y ago
    How do you conclusively attribute diabetes to agent orange 40 years after the fact? What test do you run, and what scientific methodology do you employ? We are real bad at connecting dots that take more than a few years to happen. So many other things happen to us every day. Even if some bad action doubles your odds of a certain outcome.. that means it is still 50/50 if the original thing "caused" your bad outcome.

tiahura 3y ago

As someone who practices law in a disability-adjacent field, I can assure you that gaming ssdi isn’t restricted to former military.

kotaKat 3y ago

It's the FAA's normal mental health brigade horseshit, except this time it's the FAA snooping around in VA records just because they can. It looks like the veterans being targeted have various concerns like PTSD, which the FAA finds that as soon as you even think you're depressed, they want to revoke your pilots license because they think you'll immediately pull Some Shit in the air. The average person has no clue how bad mental health is in the aviation sector and how hard it has to be hidden so they can actually keep doing what they love -- to fly. See also: https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/pilots-crying-out-help-pilots-criticize-faa-outdated-prohibitive-mental-health-policies/ https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/pilots-crying-out-help... > the FAA has subjected him to costly frequent drug tests, and doctor's visits with FAA-approved experts who don't accept insurance > the FAA wouldn't accept other doctor's notes saying that he was perfectly fine to fly a plane The FAA throws up some massive gates as soon as you get flagged like this and forces you to go to a battery of doctors and psychs that only they can apparently decide your fate.

briffle 3y ago
Right, its not like hundreds of people's lives are in these pilot's hands. I can't imagine what a depressed pilot might do.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525
- tycho-newman 3y ago
  Perfectly competent pilots have killed more people than depressed ones since the beginning of flight. Empirically, non-depressed pilots are more of a risk to the public. But they don't get this kind of stigma.
  - kkielhofner 3y ago
    It’s also one of the more glaring issues still present in regard to mental health stigmatization - that people with mental health issues are a danger to others. The overwhelming majority of people experiencing mental health issues are only a danger to themselves (worst case). The differences in suicide rates compared to murder-suicide rates back this up but per usual extremely rare cases or murder-suicide grab headlines while the 125 suicides per day on average in the US are completely unknown to anyone other than the people personally impacted by them. Not only are murder-suicides sensational, the “murder” component bypasses the otherwise standard media practice of not reporting on suicides because of the data on upticks in additional suicides due to reporting.

dghughes 3y ago

> I've seen that military veterans are extremely adept at gaming the system to their benefit. They are able to maximize disability benefits as well as GI Bill benefits. I'm not in the USA but really to me that's just seems like they are getting what they should. Any citizen of any country should get medical care free of charge. Military veterans whether their issue is from combat or not I think should get all the care they can. If the system is working against you and you can find ways to fight back and help others that is OK with me.

mattw2121 3y ago
These benefits (and the gaming of them) are not about receiving medical care. These veterans already get free medical care from the VA. It's about monetary payments. They game the VA disability system to get paid.
- docandrew 3y ago
  I’m not sure how “gaming” it is possible when the VA either performs (or contracts out) medical exams for a veteran’s specific claim and determines whether the veteran is eligible or not. It’s not like they just take a veteran’s word for it.
  - sedivy94 3y ago
    I work on a military base and can attest to this. Many prior enlisted (veterans) feel that they get shafted (screwed or taken advantage of) by the contract between themselves and USG during their service. Their pay is low and transitioning back to a civilian lifestyle is incredibly difficult, despite their compulsory, Congress-mandated transition assistance training. Maximizing their disability claims is one way of getting what they deserve. The VA has a disability rating system that goes from 0% to 100%. Obtaining a 100% disability rating guarantees a certain amount of monthly income for life. The step increase in pay from 80% disability to 100% disability is large. There’s also a logarithmic function that makes it increasingly difficult to raise your disability rating after each disability claim. Hypothetically, losing your left leg might qualify for 50% disability, losing a second leg might qualify for 75%, and then losing an arm might qualify for 87.5%. Pretty horrendous. That being said, many service members aim to hack the system by making disability claims for everything under the sun. Service members often collect disabilities such as arthritis, lumbar disc degradation, knee injuries, sleep apnea, and depression. Like Pokémon - gotta catch ‘em all.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago

> I've known and worked with multiple veterans and each one of them gamed these systems to maximum benefit. So exactly like private employees & companies? I'm not sure we should be expecting humans not to game systems to their own benefit. Isn't that basic human nature?

mattw2121 3y ago
Yes, I think we should expect people to act with integrity. When they don't we should call them out. I'm all for social programs to help people in need, but I end up opposing most of the proposed social programs. Why is this? Because people game them. If people acted with integrity, and only people that truly needed assistance utilized social programs, then I think you'd find far less people oppose them.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  Why is it not integrity to use the system to maximize the benefit to myself? Insurance carriers and the medical-industrial complex are notoriously byzantine, and so if anyone can navigate those waters and improve their outcomes, and extract the maximum value of care for themselves, then I think that is exactly what one should be expected to do within the bounds of the system they are given. There is nothing dishonest or "gaming" about it.
  - mattw2121 3y ago
    When you lie about medical conditions, that is not acting with integrity. If you believe that lying to achieve maximum personal outcomes is, in fact, acting with integrity, then our definition of integrity is vastly different.
    - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      It was termed "gaming" and not "lying". Where are you seeing lies?
- 3y ago

lp0_on_fire 3y ago

> This is just my anecdotal observations, but I've seen that military veterans are extremely adept at gaming the system to their benefit. They are able to maximize disability benefits as well as GI Bill benefits. I've known and worked with multiple veterans and each one of them gamed these systems to maximum benefit. "gamed" is a very loaded term that suggests something untoward is happening as opposed to people just trying to get the benefits they're entitled to as Veterans. Do you have any evidence that the people you've observed are doing something shady or do you just think they're getting more than they deserve? > It also appeared that they coached each other on how to obtain maximum benefit. Is it "gaming" the system when I offer my friend advice on how to navigate the byzantine health insurance system in the US?

mattw2121 3y ago
Yes, I have anecdotal evidence that people are gaming the system to get more than they deserve. I have directly observed multiple Vietnam Vets gaming the Agent Orange system to get 90-100% disability. The would visit multiple doctors to get the wording they needed to supply evidence that some health issue was related to Agent Orange. Their goal was to get a doctor to write down that a particular health issue "might" be related to Agent Orange. Once they achieved that, they would add that health issue on the list of other health issues. Each one would get them 5-20% disability.
- lp0_on_fire 3y ago
  To be be clear, you are not a physician who has examined these Vietnam Vets and have determined that their issues are 100% unrelated to Agent Orange?
- mattw2121 3y ago
  (responding to to sibling comment) No, I'm not a doctor that has examined them. I have been told by these people that they want to maximize their disability payments and they can do that by claiming things are caused by agent orange. I've been told by them that they will shop around the diagnosis until they get something in writing they can use. I have been told by these people that they don't care if it is related to agent orange or not, as long as they can get a doctor to write it down.

hedora 3y ago

What happened to medical record confidentiality? Presumably this is a slow normalization of deviance play, and using people’s medical records against them will be commonplace soon. Starting with vets is particularly cynical, but sadly unsurprising. Anyway, since these records can be used to screw vets over, can vets also access the statistics they’d need to prove safety violations and other forms of negligence in the chain of command?

tycho-newman 3y ago
It is routine for government agencies to audit medical claims records for waste, fraud,and abuse. These uses are well-defined in existing American medical privacy laws.