I care not for your worthless anecdotes about healthcare. Your opinion, via your posts in this thread, speaks for itself entirely. Your attempt to set up a some kind of strawman argument by seeking my qualifications in order to defend a horrible opinion is funny as well.
I offered no anecdotes and made no attempt to establish a strawman; I only made an attempt to be entirely transparent about my relationship with the healthcare system since that is apparently of importance to you, and given how readily you criticized my crendentials (or supposed lack thereof) I find it odd than you're unwilling to be equally transparent about your relationship with the heahcare system and your credentials (or lack thereof).
Yet you have no problem taking potshots from the sideline, without actually engaging in any kind of substantive discussion in which you offer any opinion of your own. You're welcome to call my opinion horrible, but unless you're willing to explain why you think such, and provide a compelling counter opinion, your rhetoric is hollow and baseless.
Although I don't expect you to make any attempt to engage in meaningful discourse, I do wonder why you were so personally offended by my relatively uncontroversial musings about the American healthcare system.
I don't even know what part of my post(s) you take issue with.
That the American healthcare system generally prioritizes treatment over prevention of illness?
That there are individuals in the American healthcare system who prioritize revenue over the health of patients?
That diseases such as type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity are being generally approached in the wrong way?
That treatment of health issues should involve more than maintenance via medication, but rather should entail lifestyle changes that aim to treat/cure the underlying issue(s) so that recovery can occur?
Those are the majority of my claims, and I see nothing controversial about the aforementioned.
I was equally willing to admit that not all alternative treatments are effective and that there are individuals involved with alternative medicine who are not doing so in a good faith to improve health, but rather to make money. It goes both ways and the objective facts demonstrate this. Again, I don't think I said anything particularly controversial.
Something like homeopathy is without a doubt bogus. But other "alternative" medicines, such as turmeric/curcumin and saffron have strong science behind them, to name a couple... there are plenty more.
Then we have antibiotics and vaccines which are undoubtedly massive successes of western medicine, to name a few, but we have plenty of evidence demonstrating the hawkish marketing and overprescribing of opiate painkillers, which has had devastating effects on American society.
You'll find plenty of examples that fall into each category: good and bad forms/applications of western medicine, good and bad forms/applications of "alternative" medicine.
I find it somewhat humorous and difficult to understand that things such as eating a healthy diet primarily consisting of fruits, vegetables, whole/unprocessed grains, and plenty of fiber, along with getting ample exercise -- while avoiding diets that we know to be harmful to health, is now considered to be controversial.
I suppose the discussion I was attempting to have didn't touch on specifics, so perhaps my attempt to offer up and delve into some specific examples will help to clarify my position.