Humans are economic creatures–we fundamentally want to improve our standard of living and we know money is how we do that in a modern society. The only close substitute appears to the sanctimonious self-satisfaction of whacked progressive ideologues, who will sacrifice everything–especially other people’s everything–to have that glow of “aren’t I just the most wonderful human ever”. But money really does make the world go round. And doctors aren’t immune from that, not at all immune from it, nor are hospital administrators and particularly drug companies. So why would we be shocked that they figure out how to game the system and get more money, lots more money, by diagnosing as many people as they can with a disease or condition, and even making up new conditions, hopefully lifelong ones that keep the money spigot open forever.
I brought this up in the context of gender disaffirming care and most recently, autism. An author has recently written a whole book on the topic it turns out. The book is The Age of Diagnosis by Dr. Suzanne O’Sullivan. God bless you Suzanne for hopefully shining a brighter light on this phenomenon. As she points out, unfortunately a large number of patients are happy with this phenomenon because it means they can blame all their failures or disappointments on some medical issue. But it is costing us a fortune and it isn’t helping people have better lives at all. This review gives you an excellent sense of the issue. (Book Review)
