You are absolutely correct and I 100% agree with you. Everyone should view healthcare in this manner and act on their own behalf. Although my situation certainly differs from yours I also take my healthcare seriously and act on my own behalf. I may not always involve my doctors in all in that I do since many are simply incapable or unwilling to accept any medical knowledge that falls outside of what they already know.

Many people are in bad situations as their choice in medical professionals can be very limited based upon a number of factors such as geography.

Although I feel confident in my ability to understand and assist in my own medical care I feel helpless to assist those that I care about. For instance, a brother that is too bullheaded and ignorant to do the most basic things to assist in his own healthcare. My mother, who is not the brightest bulb, lacks access to information and wouldn't have the ability to digest it anyway, who is geographically limited in her healthcare choices and who suffers from ailments which further degrade her ability to reason and retain information. These people are frequently taken advantage of by a medical system designed to financially rape people rather than competently address their medical needs.

How do we address healthcare for the poor, for those unable to competently help themselves, and those that are severely limited in healthcare choices?

Different rules apply in the United Kingdom and Australia. The practice of medicine for profit in the manner of the U$A would be unthinkable in both countries.

@anglophone right ???

I've got my own stories I could tell but I'm certain you have far better ones. My own experiences with myself and others I've known mirror that of what you stated. I certainly agree with you.

I agree. With that said I find the whole discussion of government healthcare for all to be ridiculous. First we need to address what "healthcare" is before we dole it out to everyone.

As for depression, there are other things besides drugs that are scientifically proven to help but doctors will rarely discuss such options even as an addition to drug therapy. Certainly counseling is one option but there are others. Exercise, diet, certain supplementation, ECT, etc. Of course ECT isn't even an option for most people until/unless they've tried about 10 different drugs to no avail.

As for side effects of drugs, yeah, they rarely will discuss such things and only address them once a patient is suffering from them and then are more likely to add a drug to help with the side effect(s) rather than take a person off the drug causing the problem in the first place.

So long as a patient isn't severely depressed who cares if they have no libido, right?

In my experience I would change the word "are" in your first statement to "should be"