> who actually gets antibiotics for a sore throat?

My friends whose parents are doctors would often give them antibiotics for the smallest things.

Physicians are often late to the public-health party (as evidenced by the opioid crisis and over-prescription of antibiotics).

There's a ton of overlap with the people that stop taking antibiotics once they feel better rather than finishing the course (and thus have them sitting around, and decide to take them the next time anything at all is wrong). In some cases doctors will also relent and just write a "get out of my face" prescription to shut a hypochondriac up, but that's more rare these days because most realize how bad an idea that is (in the past, it was considered fairly harmless to prescribe a course of antibiotics even if someone didn't need it, but now we mostly know better).

When people go to the doctor for a sore throat, they want "take these pills and it will get better". They don't want to hear "let your immune system deal with it", because that makes them wonder why they even bothered going to the doctor.

Hence doctors prescribing antibiotics - it's something to take.

Then give them a placebo.

It's ridiculous and infuriating that I had to fight for a full course of doxycycline to treat a proven Lyme disease infection, while people get antibiotics for harmless transient infections just to make them feel like they're doing something.

Isn't it in the long-term best interests of health insurers to be on the front lines fighting antibiotic resistance?

Probably, but tragedy of the commons etc.

It's not unheard of for doctors to prescribe antibiotics "in case it is strep" before the test comes back.

I get strep regularly (2-3 times per year). I've never once waited more than a few minutes for the swab test done in-office to confirm it.