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Comment by hirvi74 | Hacker News Reader

This is basically how western medicine operates in the US to begin with.

That's blatantly untrue. The primary criticism to Western medicine is that is has a high cost because doctors are afraid of being sued for malpractice and order lots of unnecessary and invasive tests to confirm any diagnosis before ordering a treatment. It's basically the exact opposite of what you say, which when taken to the extreme is also problematic.

What about the opioid crisis? What about the Sacklers? Was all of that fiction?

That is simply not true. What you are ascribing to personal gain is just protecting against personal loss.

Ordering an extra test or an extra drug is mostly a doctor covering themselves from potential lawsuit.

You're delusional if you think physicians maliciously over-prescribing in the US is not a problem.

People are tremendously impacted, for good or ill, when prescribed pain medications, ADHD medications, anti-depressants, etc. Many of these people are harmed. Many of the doctors who caused them harm simply do not care.

No kidding. The slightest issue with a medication, and every doctor I have seen starts foaming at the mouth, "I can prescribe X to help with that."

Then before you know it, you have to take a pill to take a pill. Then down the road, you have to take a pill to take a pill to take a pill.

I'm no medical Calvinist either, but I am not sure that polypharmacy should be the end goal if it can be avoided.

to be fair - I also met doctors who appeared to be competent and afaict didn't take advantage of my situation.

Sure, plenty out there exist. However, it's not always the doctor but hospital admins that tighten the screws.

Doctors may care about treating patients, but hospitals only care about one thing -- money. Pressuring doctors into pursuing unnecessary treatments are one of many ways hospitals try to increase revenue.

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