It also sounds like a very much American problem due to American healthcare..

Its not unique to the US. Just a few years ago a high profile case happened in portugal where a man had a dispute with his parents and was forcibly committed for 2 years without the doctor his parents went to ever seeing him.

That's not really an example of the issue mentioned:

> "Having known several friends who got committed and held against their will in psych wards when there was no good reason to, because their insurance was good, this is an issue."

This is pretty much specific to the US (in developed countries). It would be impossible in Portugal.

Basically, the only advantage of American healthcare is that if pays for innovation better than others. The world benefits from it, Americans suffer due to it. As long as they're happy, good for them.

If the government is paying the facility to continue holding/treating the “patient”, I don’t see how it’s in any meaningful way different nor impossible in Portugal.

The way the fraud works is different. In the US it is their insurance is good, keep them in. In Portugal everyone has the same insurance so it is keep our faucility as full as possible, only releasing just enough people to make it appear like we are doing something.

I have no idea what fraud occurs. In either system. I know enough humans to know that some are honest and some are not. Thus if it is possible to get away with fraud odds are someone is.

The government doesn't pay the facility, it runs the facility.

It certainly creates its own set of problems, but not that one.

According to the first hits on google, roughly half of Portugal's hospitals are private.

Number of hospitals are not a relevant measure, since all the major hospitals are public. Here are more relevant measures: 70% of the hospitalizations and 73% of urgent care occur in public hospitals.

I don't have the numbers for psychiatric hospitalizations, but I would guess the number is higher than 70%.

The American part seems to be that our penny-pinching private insurance companies finally provide a benefit in protecting us from being committed forever?

Because plenty countries have private hospitals who can keep billing the govt as long as they can keep you there.

Raoul Wallenberg was allegedly thrown into a psychiatric ward in Russia when he came on a political visit, and held there till the end of his life.

The incentives may change by country, but it is pretty common to setup wards like prisons, for practical reasons. And that can be abused, as every form of power will eventually be.

He was arrested in Hungary during the siege of Budapest. Everything after that is pure speculation. When he went to meet General Malinovsky he famously said he didn't know if he'd be a guest or a prisoner.

I've never heard any of this about a psychiatric ward before and he was definitely not arrested in Russia on a visit.He was also an OSS asset - and there is a more than decent chance that the Russians knew it. I do not see any way this very special case with this very special man can be used to make a statement about broader issues to do with mental health. I walk by a memorial to him near Deák ter on a regular basis and think of him often.

USSR had a long history of putting disidents in psychiatric wards. Those who dared to criticize communism ("the greatest system ever") would be labeled as crazy and locked in a hospital.

Raoul Wallenberg wasn't what you'd call a dissident criticizing communism, and was mostly known for saving Jews from the Nazis by offering them Swedish protected passports.

Officially he was arrested by the Russians for espionage in Budapest in 1945, during the war, with later reports suggesting he was actually involved in an espionage effort. He allegedly died in prison a few years later. There were claims that he was sighted in prisons and psychiatric hospitals as late as the '80s but if they're true then this certainly wasn't used as a cover, he was already claimed dead. The psychiatric ward angle doesn't really make sense in these circumstances, there's no need for a cover story when the official story already sounds like a cover, and even presumably legitimate.

In my experience such facilities aren’t any better in some “nice” northern European countries.

The incentives might be slightly different, end results the same.

For example in Finland involuntary commitment is somewhat frequently used as an impossible-to-appeal alternative to investigative detention. You’d have to be crazy to do crimes, right?

Involuntary commitment is just inherently suspectible to abuse, I’m not sure anyone should have that power.

Happend in germany too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustl_Mollath

To silence someone being inconvenient to the powers that be, no less.

It always reminds to the USSR where critics where put in wardens as well, instead of arresting them.

Indeed, no such incentives (e.g. financial) are in place in the country in which I am in Eastern Europe, thus, no one is really interested in abusing those things. Were they given financial incentives to do so, they most likely would.

This used to be a big issue in the Soviet Union, but for political instead of financial reasons:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_...

This often veered into straight-up torture, including electric shocks and drugs that caused pain as a means to "cure" people from not believing in communism.

Did you know Electric shock is still a very lucrative business in the USA, while the United Nations has deemed involuntary ECT (which is allowed if court-ordered in the US) as torture?

Meanwhile the FDA recently re-classified ECT as Category 2 "Safe and effective" devices, even though there are hundreds of studies showing they cause long term memory loss.

I'm not even sure why we still haven't reformed the FDA, but it is long overdue.

Or drilling healthy teeth without anesthesia and setting dental fillings so there would be no proof that the teeth was healthy.

Honest question: how do you know the issue is not hapening?

I used to work in health care for years, and I have an understanding of our health care system. Make no mistake, it still sucks in many areas, and there is some cover up between cops and health care workers when it comes to drug users, or anyone who goes to the detox room (alcoholics, mostly). They treat people inhumanly there.

Before I became a health care worker, I spent some time at the psychiatric ward, and at the detox room (voluntarily). I liked the psychiatric ward, the staff and roommates were nice, and I made some pleasant memories with a girl in there. :)

In any case, you are typically an inconvenience and they do not want you there, especially at the detox room.

Why would this be the case? Do healthcare facilities not receive "insurance money" based on patients in the rest of the world? Because I'm pretty sure they do. Whether is abused or not is a different matter.