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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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What gets me the most is that he prescribes to family members in emergencies. This pisses me off pretty severely. For people who don't know a doctor, getting the drugs they need can be a huge struggle. Rather than try to fix the amount of red tape in the system, doctors what, make sure that it never affects the people they care about, and let the rest of us just deal with it? this ability to avoid the consequences of their own inaction is typical of doctors and part of why the US healthcare system's problems aren't just caused by faceless bureaucrats.

Counterpoint: the obnoxiousness of the medical system is beyond Scott's marginal ability to fix, and in such cases one must tend to one's garden.

But every doctor thinks this way and they're the only group with the collective power to do anything about it.

But no individual doctor actually controls that collective power.

Doctors can prescribe to family members in almost all countries. It's not what's causing the US malaise.

Exactly how should Scott fix the red tape in the system? (Except for running his own experimental shoestring clinic, and talking loudly about the problem to his big and influential audience, both of which he already does.)

I agree, I strongly resent the paternalism of a system that even requires a prescription in the first place (if your concerned about drug abuse a good start would be that prescriptions are required for controlled substances and that insurance doesn’t have to cover drugs purchased without prescriptions)

I didn't say that it was breaking the system, I did say that it was removing their incentive to fix it.

Exactly how should Scott fix the red tape in the system?

Refuse to do business by fax.