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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (340544)	6/18/2007 12:50:35 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1576587

War, red tape haunt civilian workers An analysis finds a pattern of blocked claims for psychological injuries sustained by contract employees in Iraq and Afghanistan. By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer June 17, 2007 HOUSTON — Samuel Walker saw combat in Iraq firsthand: He was splattered with human flesh and shrapnel in a dining hall when a suicide bomber blew himself up just a few feet away. When Walker got back to the U.S., he brought some of the battlefield home with him. He heard phantom screams in broad daylight, smelled gunpowder that wasn't there. A loud noise would send him into a defensive crouch. He'd been eating French fries in the mess hall at the time of the blast, and the sight of a McDonald's restaurant now brought back violent memories. Two doctors diagnosed Walker with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, directly related to his close encounters with violence in Iraq. But Walker was not a combat soldier. He was a civilian recreation supervisor for KBR, the largest contractor in Iraq. And instead of getting the medical and counseling help he sought, Walker, a U.S. Army veteran, found himself caught in a morass of red tape and rejected insurance claims. A Times investigation of a taxpayer-financed insurance system, based on reviews of scores of cases, has found a pattern of repeatedly blocked claims for treatment of psychological injuries sustained by civilian workers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some seriously afflicted contract workers have been dumped into indigent medical care programs, according to court records. Many have had to wage lengthy legal battles to win payments for psychological treatment. At least four have committed suicide after returning home from Iraq, according to court records and interviews with attorneys and family members. Although insurance companies have paid for counseling for many workers, they also have fought claims for psychological treatment more than for other types of injuries, according to data compiled by The Times from Department of Labor records. Though contractors claiming psychological problems made up about 4% of nearly 1,400 serious reported injuries from 2003 to 2005, such workers accounted for 13% of the cases fought out in courtrooms. In fighting claims, the insurance companies have relied on doctors with questionable expertise, according to court records and claimants' attorneys. In one case, an insurance company psychiatrist who specialized in pharmacological research broadly dismissed psychology as "baloney." In another, a psychologist hired by insurance giant American International Group, or AIG, for his supposed expertise in PTSD had seen only 10 to 15 cases in a decade of practice. The companies have disputed some cases in which their own doctors determined that workers were suffering psychological damage, court records show. Gary Pitts, a Houston attorney who has represented more than two dozen contractors with psychological problems, said contractors "put their lives on the line, and then they have to wait to get benefits" while insurance companies fight their claims. The system "is costly; it's inefficient; and it's inhumane," he said. Insurance companies defended their handling of psychological claims, saying that such cases required more time to diagnose and more documentation to process. They denied any financial motivation in delaying payments. AIG has the largest number of claims from Iraq. The company said it paid more than half of the claims for psychological injuries, compared with more than 90% of claims for all injuries. The firm declined to comment on individual cases but said it hired only qualified experts to assess its claims. "Companies benefit, both from a financial perspective and a customer satisfaction perspective, to settle claims as quickly as possible," said Chris Winans, an AIG spokesman. "We are in the business of paying claims and in the business of making people's lives whole again." AIG fought Walker's claim for nearly a year and a half, despite a finding by one of its own experts that Walker needed psychological treatment — until July 2006, when a judge finally ruled in Walker's favor. Walker said that he understood that working in Iraq could be risky, but that he never expected his toughest battles to take place after he returned home. Insurance company officials "were fighting because they didn't want to pay," said Walker, 46, a Georgia resident. "Whatever they could do to keep it going as long as possible, they did. They were hoping that I would give up and let it go." Single page 1 2 3 >> latimes.com

To: TimF who wrote (340544)	6/18/2007 1:04:30 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576587

For those of you gentle readers who have long believed that scandinavian countries (specifically Sweden) are models of liberty and freedom to be emulated by other societies, think again. Freedom of speech does NOT exist in Sweden. On Wednesday 13 June 2007 Dahn Petterson was convicted and fined the equivalent of $3000.00 for "Agitation against an ethnic minority" . Mr Petterson who is a member of the "kommunstyrelsen" (County Commission) of Burlöv, Skåne in Sweden was attempting to solicit governmental aid for the homeless population of the town. In justifying the request for aid he pointed out that most of the homeless people were ethnic Albanian immigrants from the Kosovo region who were suffering from a high incidence of drug addiction and that the bulk of heroin and other drugs were entering Sweden from Afghanistan via Albania and Kosovo. These are facts frequently reported in Swedish newspapers. Nevertheless as in other authoritarian countries, stating verifiable but politically incorrect facts can land one afoul of the authorities. From this interpretation of events in Sweden, it does not sound like Mr. Petterson was trying to help the Albanians: "Checking a bit in Swedish language sources (the local does not bing up the full story), I can see what Dahn Pettersson really said. The source of the case is not that he said that that 95% of all heroin comes from Kosovo, but that it was the Kosovo Albanians who brought heroin to Sweden. While it is true that criminal circles among the Kosovo Albanians seem to have taken over the heroin trade in Sweden, it is not right to claim that there were no trade before there were Kosovoa Albanians in Sweden nor to accuse all Kosovo Albanians for the problem of heroin abuse in Sweden. Dahn Pettersson made a bill to the local council about homeless people and used it to attack an immigrant group. "95 procent av allt heroin kommer in via Kosovo, är det undra på att uteliggarna blir fler och fler när vi importerat denna drog genom att Friggebo gav 46 000 Kosovoalbaner permanent uppehållstillstånd." (original text in the bill). "95 percent of all heorin comes in via Kosovo, it is not strange that the homeless are increasing in numbers when we have imported this drug by Friggebo [former conservative minister] gave 46 000 Kosovoa Albanians permanent residence." (my translation). According to one newspaper, 80% of the brown smoke heroin comes through the Balkans, where Kosovo is one of the main routes. There is no basis for the 95% digit, according to the police, who also say the price of heroin has changed with the harvest of opiates in Afghanistan, but has not generally gone down since Kosovo Albanians came to Sweden, as Dahn Pettersson also claimed in his bill. According to UNODC, the heroin usage is in a slow decline in Sweden while it is increasing in the rest of the EU. So Dahn Petterson exhaggerated and lied about heroin in Sweden and blamed it all on an ethnic group, that is the base of the case." reddit.com