Have to find $41,000

[Covergaard]

Yesterday I got bitch-slapped by social services at the Egedal municipality in Denmark where I live.

I have to pay every month for the next 8 years until my youngest child will turn 21. (The age of majority is 18 in Denmark but that is this particular law known as 498 from 2011.)

The reason is that one of us parents has infected our children with depression. Before we decided to have children we should have considered the risk of infection. After the parent who was hospitalized with depression was released for home treatment, this parent should have purchased a stick with a bell on it so the children could have removed themselves from sight reducing the risk of infection just like people infected with Leprosy did in the old days. Having been poorly counseled I have to admit that we failed to do that.

After 3 years of appeals we lost our final appeal yesterday. Every month for the next years I now have to pay this fine caused by of course our failure but also as result of poor counseling making a total of $41,000.

Had the illness which run in our family been physical we would not have to pay. However as depression is a mental illness the present situation in Denmark is that mental illnesses are kind of degrading and the people suffering from it had the choice to do something about in time, just as people who choose to smoke or become overweight had a choice.

I happen to disagree.

However I live in Denmark and have no plan of living in another country despite the fact that my mother comes from another country. I have to accept the verdict and our customs regardless of how unfair I find it and the suffering it would inflict upon us for the next many years.

I am not writing this to ask for money, just to explain our present situation.

[Che Gookin]

That's a bit intense, my cousin moved to Denmark after marrying a Dane. She has nothing but good things to say about the Danish National Health Care.

Guess it's got its flaws.

[Oscar]

Having spoken with Covergaard about his case the flaw in their system is that mental illnesses are handled by group homes financed by the social services while other illnesses are handled by administrative units called regions under the state. Hospitals are free but the social services which deals with both criminal cases and cases as Covergaards where illness is the only subject are by law required to find "Guilt" at the parents caused by poor parenting. Once guilt is established the invoices start coming.

He should have kicked his wife out when she got depressed. I hate to say this about a fellow poster and a person I used to work close with but he made a mistake exposing himself to the system. Denmark is focusing very much to continue to call itself the happiest country in the world. To keep that status they have to battle the rising number of depression cases which have started to surface the last number of decades. They believe that depression is contagious. They will go very far to make citizens isolate the cases socially so they don’t infect other people.

And lighter cases of depression are very much about inherited behavior. Just about the cases in various high schools where students develop the same kind of odd symptoms. What kind of damage would a parent be able to do to the children by just showing her symptoms?

Today when I write this post the news run a story where the politicians will stop allowing insurance companies from demanding health information from a number of generations back. With the present system Covergaards children will not be able to buy insurance from any company due to their mother’s illness. Of course you will ask why health insurance is needed in a country where treatment is free if the illnesses are not mental. The answer is. Treatment is free – in slow pace. The parliament has ordered focus on certain illnesses which is popular in elections. If you happen to be caught by an illness which is not on the list you can wait for months – in extreme cases years – before you can be treated for free, unless you of course has insurance.

Here are links to the legal stuff. Unfortunately only in Denmark. You can make your sister read it if you want:
Bekendtgørelse om betaling for ophold i anbringelsessteder for børn og unge under 18 år samt for døgnophold og udslusningsophold for unge i alderen 18 til og med 22 år
http://www.co-sea.dk/files/CO-S%C3%B8fart/Diverse/Ankestyrelsen/2012/158.pdf

[Antigen]

And we want further socialised medicine, why?  Damn, yall! Move to Costa Rica! Everybody speaks English as a common language and several others as ye will. And nobody fuckes with anybody. They've rightly given up on government as the hammer to every problem.