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Insurance cut over Facebook bikini pictures (Deceptive Title Alert)
AFP via Washington Times ^ | 11/22/2009

Posted on 11/22/2009 2:24:16 AM PST by markomalley

Facebook can be a double-edged sword, a Canadian woman learned when an insurance company cut her health benefits, claiming she was healthy after seeing pictures of her smiling in a bikini at the beach.

Nathalie Blanchard, 29, took long-term sick leave from her job at IBM in Bromont, Quebec, more than a year ago for severe depression. She was receiving monthly benefits from her insurance company, Manulife.

When Ms. Blanchard called Manulife to inquire why the payments dried up, the insurance company said that "I'm available to work, because of Facebook," she told CBC television.

She said that Manulife cited several pictures Ms. Blanchard had posted on her social-networking Web-site page, including some showing her enjoying herself during a male strip-tease show at a Chippendales bar, celebrating her birthday and sunbathing.

Based on these postings, the firm claimed Ms. Blanchard was no longer depressed.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Canada; Front Page News; Government
KEYWORDS: disability; fraud
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To: markomalley
Blanchard told the CBC that on her doctor's advice, she tried to have fun, including nights out at her local bar with friends and short getaways to sun destinations, as a way to forget her problems.

It would work for me. lol

41 posted on 11/22/2009 6:18:53 AM PST by Phlap (REDNECK@LIBARTS.EDU)
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To: Spike Knotts
Do you want a sad check? Would some of my tax money make you feel better?

Didn't you know? Unproductive, self-absorbed layabouts are entitled to free money! Just because because they can muster up the energy to splash in the ocean or stuff fivers into a sweaty jock doesn't mean they should be forced to muster up the energy to earn a paycheck, silly.

42 posted on 11/22/2009 6:19:25 AM PST by Anti-Utopian
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To: Spike Knotts
Are you laboring under the mistaken impression that life/health insurance is a right?

Well let's see in a "free market" where one should be able to buy something a neighbor does even if a higher risk may make it costlier, I do think one should have the opportunity to buy life insurance in case one is hit by the proverbial bus so one's family can mitigate the loss. Thinking one should have reasonable access to what others do has nothing to do with thinking it's a "right". So don't muddy up the argument with things I didn't say or even infer. I said the opportunity to buy insurance, nothing about cost. How you manage to take that and infer I think people should get some sort of free ride or guarantees on life is rather incredulous.

I can’t help but notice you haven’t started your own “perfect” insurance provider. You seem to have it all figured out...so when will your first agent open his doors?

Is that a reasonable response that if i take issue with some industry or practice that I have no voice unless I start my own company in that field? LOL!

I can’t help but notice that despite his “ignorance” you were unable to answer his question. Where did the stat come from? Or is it ig’nant to ask someone to provide a source?

My post did not intend to nor did it need to argue with stats I did not post and do not necessarily agree with. My post was a first hand example of the realities of severe depression and a bipolar diagnosis in response to his 2 posts which showed an ignorance of the subject regardless of exact stats.

Did you know that 99 percent of all people who are depressed are responsible for their own lives?

And?
43 posted on 11/22/2009 6:19:47 AM PST by visualops (Freepin' Pre!)
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To: Spike Knotts
Would some of my tax money make you feel better?

Its good to know that you won't be taking anything that belongs to me in the future. I'm glad to hear that once you draw all that you have put into social security (plus a reasonable interest)...you will return the checks...or won't cash them anymore. I'm also glad to hear that you will only receive medical treatment up to the cost of what you paid into FICA....'cause I really don't want to be paying for your new hip when you are 80....or your Viagra.

And if something happens to you in the next year (if you are still young...I don't know)...and you can no longer work...it is a great comfort to me knowing that even though you will be sitting in a wheelchair crapping all over yourself...I won't have to worry about you filing for disability and mooching off of society...taking my tax dollars. Its good to know your family will take care of everything....and really won't miss your lost income.

That takes a load off my mind.

44 posted on 11/22/2009 6:28:25 AM PST by NELSON111
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To: Hardastarboard

The percentage is different, depending on the source. The British Medical Journal claims that 10-20% of bipolar patients commit suicide. Others higher, and some lower. People reject mental illness because it isn’t visible to the human eye. The brain is an organ, just as the heart and lungs are organs, only the brain is more complex, in that, the more we learn about it, the more there is to know. And surgery is mostly out of the question since thought processes aren’t accessible, yet. I have seen pictures of brains, comparing a normal brain with the brain of a person with a mental disorder. And, I have worked with mental patients who have “good days” and “bad days”. Just when you think a depressed person is on the road to recovery, they end up in bed, for weeks on end. In some cases, the patients have to be tube fed because they lack the will to even move. I certainly don’t understand it, but I know enough to know that the brain can malfunction, just like any organ does. I have gone through bouts of depression, which is normal when tragedy strikes, but it’s not normal to be depressed for no apparent reason.


45 posted on 11/22/2009 6:29:27 AM PST by Jaidyn
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To: Anti-Utopian

That’s more what this story is about...a free-loader who was milking the system got busted...and now she’s pissed.


46 posted on 11/22/2009 6:29:30 AM PST by NELSON111
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To: markomalley

47 posted on 11/22/2009 6:37:11 AM PST by Rodamala
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To: NELSON111
According to studies from various organizations...JAMA...AMA...et al...an estimated 25-50% attempt it. % increasing if left untreated.

I wouldn't trust these studies done by these people, they are in the business of getting people to goto their doctors for what ever reason they can get them to go, They are funded by Doctors and Drug companies that are in the business of making money whether you need the medical help or not. Basically most doctors are happy to tell you there is something majorly wrong with you and you need to take this bunch of medicine and come back and see me every month so I can make some more money off you.

48 posted on 11/22/2009 6:39:37 AM PST by ReformedBeckite
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To: AUH2O Repub

The mother of one of my son’s friends had an acute manic episode about 4 years ago when they were 14.

I remember 14. I could think of nothing worse than having a parent draw attention to themselves in the best of circumstances, much less while in the middle of a manic episode.

My son and the other boys circled the wagons. They were nothing but supportive and protective of their friend and his mother. If you made that remark in front of them, you would have 4 angry 14 year old boys explain that her mania is an illness just as any other chronic illness.

IOW, they would call you on your ignorance. .


49 posted on 11/22/2009 6:41:05 AM PST by Protect the Bill of Rights
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To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla

“Disability claims are almost never approved on the first claim unless the applicant is blind”

I can certainly understand the blind thing. I worked for the same company for 33 years and was “never” sick, but there were many times I couldn’t I couldn’t SEE going to work.


50 posted on 11/22/2009 6:50:26 AM PST by babygene
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To: NELSON111

“I’m glad to hear that once you draw all that you have put into social security (plus a reasonable interest)...you will return the checks...or won’t cash them anymore.”

If you work for 40 years you will NEVER come close to getting back the 15% of your your lifetime wages and your employer put in (on your behalf) plus interest. Maybe you’ll get 1/10 of it...


51 posted on 11/22/2009 7:06:59 AM PST by babygene
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To: HiTech RedNeck

When I was on disability, I made certain to get specific direction in from my doctor regarding what I could and could not do, so that there would be no confusion as to what I was supposed to be doing (I had a back problem that couldn’t be diagnosed to any specific difficulty, and which was “cured” with time and physical therapy).

Since my “treatment” was to do as much workout as possible, I needed that in my doctor’s notes since someone seeing me jogging might otherwise think I should be good enough to sit at a desk at work if I could jog and swim in the pool.

I was really depressed when Obama took over our country, but I didn’t think to try to get disability for that.. :-)


52 posted on 11/22/2009 7:39:57 AM PST by CharlesWayneCT
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To: Hardastarboard

Well, one thing is clear from this discussion — 25% of those who have some form of bipolar disorder are NOT committing suicide.

Which is why we aren’t tripping over suicide victims.


53 posted on 11/22/2009 7:46:40 AM PST by CharlesWayneCT
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To: NELSON111; Turbo Pig

That risk is 15% of less than 1% of the population.


54 posted on 11/22/2009 8:45:20 AM PST by ConservativeMind (Hypocrisy: "Animal rightists" who eat meat & pen up their pets while accusing farmers of cruelty.)
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To: AUH2O Repub
This “depression” crap is almost as bad as “bi-polar” disorder. Just another way to suck off of the government teat. Everyone is sad once in a while. boo hoo, get over it.

Having seen it first hand, I pray it never happens to you.

55 posted on 11/22/2009 8:48:28 AM PST by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: Anti-Utopian; Spike Knotts

Watch it, noobs.


56 posted on 11/22/2009 8:53:48 AM PST by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla
You are an ignorant whackjob. 25% of “bi-polar” patients commit suicide.

uh, sure about that?

Puhleeze, before yapping about something you have NO CLUE about why don't you tell me how many people have been diagnosed with "bipolar disorder"....

Don't know huh?

Well because of the popularity of the diagnosis it's somewhere around 1,679 per 100,000 people.... at least that's the latest from the NIMH and now we come to your 25% mortality rate...

I'm going to go walk down the streets and see the bipolar bodies piled up on the curb for the horse drawn carts to take the to the big fire at the edge of town...

It's a big scam by the docs that over diagnose kids with this ... know about how to diagnose bipolar disorder? ... now are you talking Bipolar type I or Bipolar type II? don't know yet...

look up the DSM-IV criteria... pretty vague and general. That's why there is controversy about the "science" of psychiatry and it's diagnosis... also the politicalization when homosexuality was removed from a psychiatric abnormality.

You must have gone to the same science program that told Al Gore that the core of the earth is several million degrees and can be tapped for energy.

57 posted on 11/22/2009 10:24:27 AM PST by erman (Give a man a fire, warm him for one night. Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.)
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Comment #58 Removed by Moderator

To: FES0844
Who hasn’t at one time or other

Only God has the list but it is enormous (majority of people on earth)

59 posted on 11/22/2009 11:39:54 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (I am in America but not of America.)
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To: NELSON111
Boy...some of you people really don't know how to read. You might need to go back to school and take some reading comprehension courses.

Boy...and some people just can't be civil, and are just obnoxious jerks, aren't they? I guess we all have our crosses to bear, don't we?

I can do as you suggest, which would probably help...you, on the other hand, I am not so sure that it's fixable.

60 posted on 11/23/2009 8:45:15 AM PST by Turbo Pig (...to close with and destroy the enemy...)
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