I've had to deal with workman's comp and ridiculous insurance claims.
While I'm sure there are differences from state to state and in different areas, I can tell you that from everything I've looked at worker's compensation is set up to completely **** over injured workers in many various situations. While some workers do get the treatments they need, any of them with serious legitimate injuries may have to fight through the system for years in an attempt to get simple treatment let alone compensation for lost wages or anything else.
I've seen a work injury completely destroy the life of a friend of my father's, NOT because of the injury itself, but because his company fought him every step of the way and with intense pain and no treatment for it, it worked on him mentally. His wife couldn't stand the person it turned him into, so she took the kids and divorced him. He shot himself later in the year, and all because they ****ed him over. He lived with the pain without treatment for several years and then went through all of this because the worker's compensation system was so screwed up it allowed his employer to challenge whether he should receive treatment and prolong his suffering for that long. That is just plain wrong. He was a great friend to my father and our family, and my father said several times (usually under his breath) that the person most responsible for blocking that treatment should have been shot instead.
My main point is that workers compensation is a bad example to be giving if you want to convince people of the merits of your ideas, as that system is incredibly flawed.
Also mike, people get that you think a lot of people go to the doctor when it's not necessary. I happen to disagree and think most people don't do that.