I’m just thinking about how literally insane it is that you (and the collective “we”) are essentially forced take this coverage because your employers offer and purportedly cover part of the premium. Sure, you could shop around elsewhere but would end up paying full MSRP on premiums, including in the ACA marketplace where you wouldn’t be able to utilize any income-based premium credits.

And so you “accept” this coverage (are forced into it because it’s the “best” deal you’re gonna get) and then have payroll deductions taken out, 1/5 of your pay that could have bolstered some kind of medical savings account, aaaaand after all this they call it a BENEFIT?!

Goddamn, being any kind of worker in the USA where your employer is large enough to require an offer of insurance makes the vast majority of “consumers of health insurance” the captive audience of the entire fuckin rigged industry. Insurance tied to the workplace is such a scam. Anybody who says there is a “free market” within the the health insurance industry is full of stupid.

But why would I want a truly free market for healthcare anyway? I don’t want options like I do for buying furniture, running the gamut between IKEA particle board and hand-turned solid mahogany, cheap to bougie and everything in between.

I don’t want to settle on the “silver plan” just because I’m fine with mid-tier, real wood-veneered furniture. I want one option and that is the standard of care for whatever health thing is necessary at whatever point.

Single standard, single payer.

I’m so fucking tired of stupid shit like cancer which nobody asks for just ruining people’s lives because even if they beat the absolute shit out of the cancer they STILL PAY FOR THE CANCER one way or another, be it with actual money, begging for donations or forgiveness, or simply ruining your financial future with medical bankruptct. Jfc I hate everything about all of this.

Man, this is the only explanation for the closure of the lone Italian place in town a few years back.

No Italian restaurants currently exist in a 50 mile radius.

Town’s haunted now.

Zpoopa del giOHNO

I love this! Free cat scratchers might not seem like they have much value, but has anyone seen the price of those ready-made things?! They’re pushing $20 for a large-ish flat scratcher at lower volume places like TSC, but Target isn’t much better, still $10 for a 10" x 18" flat cheapy.

Down with bougie cat cardboard!!!

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It is just laziness and they have a blanket scapegoat to use to get out of doing their job if you walk in and are overweight.

(Please take the following as pondering general discussions of obesity between doctors/patients and not specifically directed at you.)

This was a really thought-provoking summary for me, your belief that doctors are telling people to lose weight out of “laziness.” If a suggestion like this is lazy, are patients who don’t listen to their doctor somehow not lazy?

The idea that doctors make weight a scapegoat seems prevalent in American healthcare (probably because we’re generally obese). It feels a lot like projection of one’s “laziness” (mentally it’s much more complex than that) onto a doctor, even though that doctor has probably seen hundreds of cases with the same predictable outcomes and knows that appropriate weight management would head off more serious treatment.

Frankly, I think doctors are anything but lazy when they are “forced” to order and perform risky and invasive treatments on a patient who refused to meet them halfway before the treatment became necessary in the first place. I get it, nobody likes being told what to do, especially when it seems (and literally is) so personal. But doctors also don’t like to be told what to do (“fix me!”) when a patient deigns even the gentlest suggestion to take some control of their issues at hand.

I am now 30lbs below my highest weight. The severity of my issues (joint pain, lethargy, depression, etc.) has palpably lessened losing that 30lbs very inconsistently over the last four years. If anything, I think doctors need to better read the psychological resistance many people have with weight loss and then illustrate to, rather than tell, patients how to attain weight loss in ways that don’t seem restrictive.

That 30lbs of mine, could I have done that in 30 weeks or fewer? Sure, but I didn’t want to feel perpetually hungry. In fact, I never even set a goal weight. Instead of thinking “Idgaf about my weight” or “I must lose 20lbs by Christmas!!” I just made the tiniest changes, the biggest one being taking advantage of times I wasn’t hungry by (gasp) not eating.

… Shit, I guess lazy weight loss works, too!