If you apply for disability benefits, you must be examined by an insurance doctor. In several municipalities this step is skipped for people over 60. Do you agree with that? Respond to the statement.
In Zwolle, last year the UWV deliberately skipped the examination by the insurance doctor for some thirty people over the age of 60. The newspaper Trouw charted it. The over-60s had applied for a disability benefit (WIA) after two years of illness. To get them, they had to be inspected. But that didn’t have to be done by an insurance doctor. The over-sixties received the WIA benefit after a so-called ‘plausibility assessment’ by a labor expert, as a test. The municipality was faced with critical reactions from insurance doctors, who are afraid of arbitrariness in granting benefits, if the UWV offices start to implement any different policy. What do you think of this?
ONCE, people over 60 don’t need to be inspected
We have a major shortage of insurance doctors in the Netherlands. The UWV has been trying for years to recruit enough insurance doctors, but it has not been successful. The result is that there are large backlogs in the inspections. There are about 60,000 files waiting. People over the age of 60 only have to work for a few more years before they retire, so it is better to do the assessments on younger sick employees.
DON’T, everyone should be treated equally
An inspection is not only done to check whether public money is being spent according to the rules. An examination is also important for the person himself. Research has shown that being unnecessarily long on benefits is in itself sickening. With this you automatically write off people over 60, and that can cause a lot of suffering. Of course, there are too few insurance doctors. But why the age limit? In Hengelo, due to the shortage of medical examiners, no one is called up at all. That is also a solution for the shortage of doctors, but without the age discrimination.
