Comment by fitba72 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fitba72 | Hacker News Reader

The disease model of addiction is still hotly debated in the USA. It has been widely discredited and thrown out in other western nations. What's the difference in these nations? These other nations have some form of socialized medicine so you don't have to have a medical illness to have your treatment costs covered. On the contrary, the only way to get treatment costs paid for addictive behaviours in the USA, by a medical insurance company, is if you have a disease. Try asking your medical insurance to pay to stop you making bad choices or changing your habits. The work of Stanton Peele is seminal in this field for anyone interested. Also check out The Freedom Model. Completely heretical to AA types but to rational thinkers struggling with an addictive behaviour, it could be life changing.

>On the contrary, the only way to get treatment costs paid for addictive behaviours in the USA, by a medical insurance company, is if you have a disease. Try asking your medical insurance to pay to stop you making bad choices or changing your habits.

Bingo. In the late 80's there was an explosion of teenagers going into drug rehab centers which were usually setup in hospitals with unused bed spaces. It had no correlation with teen drug use increasing and everything to do with insurance paying for it.

> Try asking your medical insurance to pay to stop you making bad choices or changing your habits.

If they found a way to scale monitoring to prove you changed, they absolutely would. The challenge is proving it.

This clearly isn’t true since plenty of people get access to psychotherapy who have public and private insurance without being diagnosed with a specific illness.

Will insurance really cover a psychiatrist without a diagnosis? I always assumed the doctor was reporting a diagnosis to the insurance company even if they weren't telling the patient.

Every time I look at a therapist while seeking treatment, they always put a disclaimer on their insurance page that a diagnosis is required to be paid for claims. Maybe it's just my state.

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