Definitely agree here, too many people go to the doctor way too often for unnecessary things. Last year I got sick with a stomach flu around the end of January, and it was the worst sickness I'd had in a good while, to the point where I could not move from my bed without getting sick, nearly every 5 minutes I had to get up. I was supposed to meet with a photographer to discuss a possible shoot, and I texted him that I was just way too sick to go out. A few days later when I finally met up with him, he said he had a cold and asked if I'd gone to the doctor for my flu, to which I said no. He admitted that he goes to the doctor for every single cold he gets. Completely unnecessary. I survived the stomach flu with no medicine whatsoever, and you can't handle a little cold? Come on.
Heck, I'm sick right now. Some sort of cold, maybe the flu, I don't know. Am I going to the doctor? Hell no. I'm toughing it out, sucking it up, and I'm even still working. Did a photo shoot and video yesterday, and have tons of work to do today, and will still have plenty more work left to last me for, well, pretty much all the time. I don't get days off.
Growing up, if myself or one of my siblings got sick, we had to tough it out and go to school, no matter how bad it was. Meanwhile, most of the other kids stayed home even if they had a little headache. My family couldn't afford to go see the doctor, so doctor visits were made for serious matters only. It wasn't until I was diagnosed with high blood pressure, an atrophied kidney, and a slew of other health problems that I started going to the doctor, otherwise I would've died. And if I hadn't gotten insurance at the time, we would've been completely fucked. My kidney removal would've cost 40 some thousand dollars, and with my insurance, it was only $7.
So with that being said, while there are a lot of people who make doctor visits for some really stupid things, when it comes to the serious stuff, if you're not covered with insurance, you're screwed. My stepdad got diagnosed with cancer a few months ago, and had to get treatments and chemo (chemo only twice) every single day, minus weekends, for 6 weeks. For each of his treatments, it would have costed $9,000. Total, he would've had to pay $270,000 just for the treatments, that's not counting the chemo. There's no way they could afford that. Thank god his employer covered it, or at least most of it from what I understand.