> I guess it is much better than the situation before that, where you paid $5000+ and they also gave you an opioid addiction.

Having a condition that actually warrants strong opioids and not being able to get them at any price is definitely not an improvement.

The problem is fundamentally that we want to pretend doctors can always distinguish two people describing the same symptoms when one person actually has them and the other is trying to get drugs. The often can't, so you can either make it hard for people to get pain medications even if they need them, or you can make it easy for people to get them even if they don't. And between these the second one is unambiguously better, because the first one is the government screwing innocent people and the second one is guilty people screwing themselves.

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freedomben 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> And between these the second one is unambiguously better, because the first one is the government screwing innocent people and the second one is guilty people screwing themselves.

Could not agree more. Depriving people with legitimate pain of opioids is IMHO legitimate torture. It's a bit of a variance on the trolley problem in that the doctor/government isn't causing the pain, but their inaction is prolonging it.

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throwaway27448 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> and not being able to get them at any price

Brother (or sister), you were simply not trying hard enough. I live in a very clean, safe, expensively-policed county, and even I know where to buy fentanyl for much lower cost than a hospital. I would happily turn to that than take 20(!!!) advils in s single day.

	▲	AnthonyMouse 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Let's review the policy options in light of your suggestion: 1) We make it hard to lawfully acquire pain medications. You pay $$$ to see a doctor and you pay it even if they refuse you. If they do, you then have to pay $$ to get them from Stringer Bell, or start there to begin with if you didn't have $$$, and hope they're not cut with drain cleaner or unevenly mixed so that some days you get 100% corn starch and other days you get a fentanyl overdose. 2) We make it easy. Anyone can get them from Walmart. The people who need them pay the same $ they do for a bottle of Advil/Tylenol instead of paying $$ to murderers or $$$ to waste scarce medical resources that could have saved someone else's life. The bottle from Walmart always has a consistent amount of the drug in it and neither the dental patients nor the addicts get a surprise fentanyl overdose. The first option is still the bad one, right?