On the first point, no, a doctor does not have any responsibility as such to consider a client's finances, but only to prescribe and administer the most medically appropriate treatment. Or rather, it is reasonably expected that most doctors would not be this indifferent, but that's really only how things are in practice, and an advantage, so to speak; doctors go through medical school learning how to comply with the medical ethics and which considerations are legitimate and which are not.
Secondly, and I say this as someone who has had, and is only now recovering from various addictions, no - addiction is not a medical condition in the same sense as anxiety of depression. I would have thought that this is pretty plain. There is obviously a physical component, but addiction in all its aspects is totally self-induced. If we're being honest, there are a set of choices that lead any person to addiction, throughout the course of which a person's volition and ability to freely decide does, admittedly, diminish. But the first steps, at least, are totally voluntary, and addiction doesn't just come down upon a person; as I said, they have to really persist and make changes to their life.
I understand addiction better than most and have been in some horrible places, but I just can't bear to listen to people abdicate responsibility like this and claim misadventure and all the rest of it. We all have choices, at least initially. The day I began to get clean and to recover from my numerous addictions was the day I stopped playing the victim and always expecting things from the medical profession; it's set up in a way that nurtures the addict, and the whole idea of initiative and choice has just evaporated. I, for one, only got worse during all the long years of indignance about doctor's 'lack of compassion' and so on.
I hope this doesn't invite hateful comments as I'm just explaining things as I see them.
S
