Comment by latexr

That is not at all the sentiment GP is expressing.

Say you have a terminal disease. Doctors evaluated the progression of your illness and estimated you have three years to live. Of course, when you begin treatment changes your life expectancy: start now and you may get twenty more years; start in two years and you’ll only get an extra four.

Your insurance company says “doctors are all quacks, you’re not ill, they’re just in it for the money” and don’t pay you anything. They know that’s a lie and that after you die there is a high probability your family will sue them out of existence, but the people currently in charge hope that will be far enough in the future they won’t have to personally worry about it. In the meantime they will enjoy the money they don’t pay you.

As the months go by, you visibly deteriorate. It’s obvious you are sick. Your insurance maybe pays for some token cheap medicine to make you more comfortable and get themselves more leeway. Maybe that buys you an extra four months. They’ll be horrible but you will be alive and so your family can’t sue. They continue to be off the hook but it’s getting harder to escape the reality.

Then a new doctor comes along and says “actually we overestimated the progression of your illness, you should’ve been given five years initially”. What do you think happens then? Obviously the insurance company will use that as an argument to further delay your treatment and double down on the rhetoric that all doctors are quacks. The damage is still happening but the urgent action needed to stave it off is once again delayed into the future.

That is what GP is complaining about. It’s obviously good news that you’re not so close to death as you thought, but that knowledge may end up hurting you in the long run.