I'm not a big proponent of restricting speech but "Ask your doctor about..." advertising should be banned in the USA. If you don't have medical training you're in no position to decide what medical conditions you may have or what treatments might be appropriate. If you want to be a doctor, go to medical school.
replyThe idea of advertising prescription drugs is absolutely bonkers in and of itself. If I recall correctly, the only reason they say "Ask your doctor about..." was a regulatory compromise that allowed such advertising. Telling the general public to simply "take Procrapin for their constipation" was deemed too extreme: The general public doesn't have the medical training to diagnose themselves or recommend treatment, but instead the manufacturer was allowed to urge the general public to nag their doctor about a medicine--that was seen as fine.
reply> "Ask your doctor about..." advertising should be banned in the USA.
replyThat advertising is illegal in almost all other first world countries.
> The US approach to healthcare is varied and confusing to outsiders
replyIs it? If find it to be very much in line with the "personal freedom above all else" which permeates US culture.
The last insurance carrier I had, through an ACA Marketplace plan, has an incentives program for members. If you go see the PCP for an annual checkup, you get about $50. If you "go paperless" 100%, you get another $50.
replyThere are about four incentives altogether, and the money is loaded on a Prepaid Visa card that is branded by the insurance carrier. The funds are not restricted, and you can spend them on anything where Visa is accepted. The cards are sometimes cycled out and replaced, but I do not know if the funds had an expiration date. There were no fees to hold the funds, and no fees to spend them.
One of my employers had that incentive but only for one year. I assume they wanted to demonstrate that as a population we were low risk but after testing us once there was no reason to do so again.
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