“There are some people you should be honest with. Doctors used to be such people, before HHS demanded access to all medical records, for example. Now they are involuntary informers to the federal government.”
Great point. I won’t even tell my doctor I smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol or eat garbage food. I am 32 years old, perfectly healthy (flawless physicals haven’t been sick enough to require a sick visit to the doctor in 4 years), 155 pounds, and I run half marathons in 2 hours and run on average 25 miles per week. I don’t need the government to tell me I need to pay more for insurance because of a few vices that are inconsequential to my personal overall health.
Unless this is repealed by the next congress, and all citizen medical records are forcibly deleted by the government, I can imagine “underground” medical care to evade the government, even so far as to flee to Mexico for medical care, just to get away from them.
Oddly enough, medicine in Mexico has a real future, because their medical schools do not limit their number of students to keep the market in perpetual shortage, like they do in the US, and they neither have to contend with vast amounts of senseless bureaucracy or contingency litigation with immense insurance costs against malpractice claims.
This means far more doctors and nurses, at much lower cost for both surgery and medicine. And because Mexicans culturally take care of their elderly at home, nursing homes in Mexico are far better than in the US. So much so that it makes a lot of sense for people to export family members who are very infirm or elderly; both for the better quality of care and life, attentive helpers and far more of them, warm climate and even aesthetic attractiveness.
Even the food is much better. What’s not to like at a fifth of the cost?