Personally, I blame the people telling the lies; e.g. the antivax campaigners, the tobacco companies, etc.
this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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Blame the politicians they own
It's tough when doctors have been liars too, like those who are hired to push a certain narrative by corporations, or those who participated in unethical studies, or basically all doctors to women saying all our problems are emotional and in our heads while ignoring objective medical facts/symptoms.
When I see how differently men and women are treated in medicine, it's hard to trust doctors to be objective. They're just not.
I'm doing my best to be a good little Democrat and look down on those who don't trust doctors but geeze, experiencing a pregnancy and then giving birth in America makes it real hard to give doctors the benefit of the doubt.
Just wait until you or someone close develops an autoimmune disease, then the trust meter falls off a cliff during round after round of tests and "you're fine".
Or if you have a bunion that skews your big toe 35° but they tell you it's not bad enough for surgery and there's nothing to be done for it.
Or...yeah we could be here all day just for the system's failings for me and my wife.
And there's our lack of or inadequate mental health coverage and care.
The tobacco companies? Telling lies? Why I never!
What's next, Kellogg shouldn't be advertising sugar for breakfast for kids?
We will always have liars about literally everything you cannot blame the liars for being successful fix the system that let them defeat truth.
You absolutely can, and should, hold liars accountable. The "don't hate the player, hate the game" excuse simply doesn't fly for everything.
Any system capable of countering a determined attempt to spread misinformation would by design attach penalties to such lies, and those penalties would be enforced on the liars. What successful fix could even be proposed that withholds blame?
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There's so many things wrong with the Americans healthcare system, I don't know how to find the most absurd one.
But also the fact that you can advertise for medicin, and that the patient actually has a say in what they get at the doctor, is insane.
Why would you trust those guys, if the medicin they sell is sponsored?
Just wait for what's coming. The ACA set us up for monetization of healthcare on steroids, and it's just about to hit critical mass. I think anyone engaged with the healthcare system today can see the enshitification accelerating.
For just a sampling of what's to come, there is a projected shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036. It seems like doctors aren't interested in joining the rest of us in working for slave wages to benefit Wall Street.
lack of residency spots by design and high student loans make becomming a primary care doctor a losing proposition. specialize to survive
Yep. If you look into how the USA produces doctors, it is over giant hazing ritual created by a person who loved cocaine.
Nursing school is less intense in that sense, but it is absolutely mean girl boot camp I shit you not literal cliques form and I stg they're literally adults and they do it anyway it is WILD to watch.
Or go to work at an insurance company denying claims. It's better money and less hassle.
Residency is almost just a hazing ritual for gatekeeping . I honestly don't think it makes doctors better. However, residency is not new, but the building doctor shortage is. My primary care physician of 20 years just retired early because the corporation that bought out his office was pushing him to take so many patients for such little compensation that it just wasn't worth it.
corporation that bought out his office was pushing him to take so many patients for such little compensation that it just wasn’t worth it.
Can we all agree that letting Wall St corps enshittify every aspect of our society so they can reap extreme profits at everyone else’s expense needs to end?
I might put it more violently, but.... Yes.
You can have insurance and still be expected to pay thousands of dollars of one out of network doctor sees you at your in network hospital.
With the joy of high deductible health plans you can pay thousands of dollars in network, because they can get away with it.
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Advertising of prescription medicine is illegal in my country so it's crazy visiting the US and those are like half of the ads
The patient doesn't really get a say. Only the shitty doctors giving into their patients demanding medications they don't need. Which isn't to say it doesn't happen, but it's not standard.
Must be pretty widespread since there's so many ads for drugs and medicin.
Because the bad doctors, as I said, do give in to the pushing patient. That doesn't mean all do.
Even if it's a small percentage of doctors, that could be a big boost in sales for the pharmaceutical company.
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From a non-American's perspective, I think part of the mistrust comes from Americans have been through high-profile lies perpetrated by government agencies.
For example, a more recent one in the last few decades is the Food Pyramid/MyPlate that was/is promoted by the US government's agriculture department. This has led to Americans in the late '70s/early '80s to start a war on saturated fat and cholesterol, and the rapid adoption of carbohydrates in the average diet. What has happened in the decades following is a rapid increase in metabolic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and mental illnesses — all of which were rare in human history prior to the '70s. While I'm glad Americans are waking up to the realisation of the mass brainwashing of what constitutes "healthy" food, I'm still upset that — due to the influence of America on the global stage — my own country has followed suit in adopting the US's dietary guidelines to the detriment of our own health.
And that's just one example.
The most glaring generator of mistrust for decades now is the thing citizens discuss all the time but is never addressed: our out of control military budget.
We could solve every one of our country's financial issues multiple times over by reducing the military budget, and not even drastically so.
Our military was tasked with an audit to reign in waste and spending. They couldn't pass an audit so they were just given a free pass, no penalties or repercussions. The first audit was 2017 and they failed to pass. They failed two more since then. Senator Sanders intoruduced a bill in 2021 and again in 2023 which required an audit and was supposed to impose penalties for failure, it's been introduced so we'll see how that goes.
Tbh I wouldn't mind it if it wasn't purely combat focused, one of very few paths out of poverty, and if most of that budget wasn't going straight to Boeing Lockheed and Northrup.
Having an option for young adults to live in a structured environment, maybe learn some trade skills, and most importantly have to learn to deal with other humans would give a lot of people a much needed leg up on their psychosocial development during that early adulthood. I also think it would do it better than the current college experience (especially for little shit rich kids but I'll get to that).
I say this because I firmly believe a lot of people need a terrible first job as a young adult to finish calibrating their sense of adversity and problem solving. Something that's not going to injure them or abuse them, but that's juuust vaguely unpleasant enough to teach some distress tolerance without major physical or psychological trauma.
My first real adult job was awful (unfortunately also extremely unsafe, so not good for these purposes) but it really taught me a LOT about... a lot of things really. Conflict management. Situational awareness. Teamwork. How to lead other people in unsafe/crisis situations. Probably more I'm not thinking of. I wouldn't wish it on anyone but I can't deny that the job made me who I am in a lot of ways that I'm actually really proud of. I still just about piss myself when talking to HR but a little wariness there isn't exactly unwarranted. It also really hammered home how little management types care about your safety. That translated nicely into the teamwork- I learned quickly that admin can't be trusted any farther than their lazy asses can walk and at 2:30 AM it's you and your coworkers and that's it so you better figure out how to get along with them.
The other thing about it is that it's not really the poor kids who need it! They've probably been working some shit job since they were old enough to legally (and maybe a little before that)! I didn't really grow up "rich" (especially since the wealth my parents enjoy now is due to them being hella stingy) but I definitely grew up sheltered, and that job definitely fixed my stupid ass.
Thank you for that.
I've long thought we need a non-military service branch much like you describe and for much the same resson.
In my experience it isn't just "rich" kids but anyone that grows up with minimal adversity and exposure to people outside their immediate (sheltered) bubble that are really hard to work alongside. Anyone who hasn't been told "no" enough to understand the world doesn't cater to them, really.
a big part of it is how conservatives have a privileged position in the discourse, and since conservatives are predominantly rural they have distruct because rural areas get the worst doctors and other professionals so it affects how they see the professions.
Medical ethics in the US are not and have never been great. A few decades ago, they were bad enough to intentionally infect patients with syphillus (sp?) without their knowledge or consent. Maybe a decade or two ago, doctors were bribed into over prescribing opiates and starting the opiate crisis.
No shit people don't trust the medical establishment. They may act appropriately most of the time, but that just isn't good enough to be trustworthy.
I suspect the GOP and gullible citizens have a bigger impact.
Conservatives correctly identify the location of anxiety, but not the source of the issue. So, a mismatch of anxiety over healthcare costs leading to mistrust of healthcare is, like, textbook conservatism.
Take the anxiety over one thing and use it to stoke fears related to that anxiety.
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Nah, we have plenty of anti-vaxers up in Canada too.
US has a huge influence on the entire world. Could it be that it started (or got amplified) in the US due to poor healthcare and then spread out to the rest of the world? I'm not trying to put all the blame on US of course, but it doesn't sound that unreasonable that it could be partially responsible.
Maybe the prominent anti-vax campaigns in the US and their proselytizing on the internet have contributed to the sentiment overall but there's always been mistrust of vaccines around the world. Most of the current anti-vax rhetoric about the autism link was first put forward by a British doctor https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673605756968/fulltext
The modern Antivax movement was literally started by a British doctor anal probing kids to prove the jab doesn't work, but don't let that stop you from making everything America's fault!
Hey, I've been really careful with my words to NOT say that. I was just wondering and I acknowledge that it might be nonsense.
UK too. Some I've met who are old enough to remember life before the polio vaccine and still claim it isn't needed. It's purely stupidity.
It's because it's a pro profit business that inflates it's prices in an open market for the insurance companies. This bit of knowledge undermines ALL other truths. No matter how much you try and argue people believe that money is the world's biggest motivation because they desperately need it and see it being idolized.
Not the reason. Lots of distrust in Europe too, where you can buy a box of paracetamol for just a few euro.
You can also buy tylenol for cheap in america, that's why it's a ridiculous example of how health costs have to be inflated to account for the way insurance reimburses which leaves uninsured people SOL but also occasionally leaves insured people SOL if they find some silly little reason not to cover something like they used the brand name instead of the generic or they used injectable vs pill or whatever the fuck else.
You can do that in the US too, but if they give it to you in a hospital the line item charge is much higher.
Places where it's sold over off the shelf in supermarkets it costs pennies.
It's also now harder to buy good vinegar in smaller supermarkets. They've replaced most of their options with cider vinegar, due to idiots falling for the drink cider vinegar for your health joke.
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And/or the price gouging of the providers.
Intentional heroin overdose.
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