Politicians & Diapers should be changed often and for the same reason. [Mark Twain]

Okay. You want government run health care? I say, why not try it out on a test case? Let’s socialize PET healthcare. Sure why not? I mean, it’s the perfect test case no? Pets, while popular and beloved add nothing to the GDP themselves so it’s not like you’re screwing around with anything important, also it’s a relatively small market compared to human health care so if it does get screwed up then it’s no problem going back to its market based roots. But if it’s a success, oh boy! Think about it, the government could make a credible claim that it’s ready to run human healthcare! It’s also a healthcare market that is virtually untouched by complicated, state by state insurance rules and regulations. It’s virgin territory and just the perfect test bed to see what happens to a care system when you both remove health insurance AND institute complete government oversight.  Of course, we’ll have to define success in some pretty definitive ways… no fair letting the government create the scorecard (that’s a whole other post!).

So, let’s think about this… First of all, there seems to be a rather small pool of veterinarians… I mean, there are enough right now… but that’s because most people don’t take their animals in for healthcare because it’s so expensive (and optional)… but with free vet visits we can expect to see a doubling, tripling and probably even a quadrupling of demand for vet care. Of course, if you think about it, that takes one metric of success off the table… how’s that you ask? Well, if we measure success by how many NEW pets we enroll on Medi-Pet (my new name for the program) then we see that it’s a meaningless goal.  BUT Of COURSE it would be a success by this metric! Free vet visits… can you imagine the rush!  But if you think about it, what does quadrupling then number of new enrollies have to do with providing care?  Well, nothing really.  This of course begs the question, if it’s a meaningless goal then is it a meaningless argument too?

Anyway, now, to cope with that drastic increase in demand we’ll probably have to mandate that no veterinarian can turn away any pet. So this means that those rich folks who pay top dollar to veterinarian specialists to look after race horses, polo ponies, and ranchers with lots of livestock will have to just get in line with everyone else.  There are no favorites now, remember, it’s all free. But of course, with all the dogs, cats, hamsters, ferrets, snakes, llamas, horses, lizards, birds and fish out there requiring mandatory medical care we can probably still expect that there will be gaps in coverage. So, we’ll just have to prioritize now then won’t we?  Dogs and cats are pretty universal so they are covered; well call it Medi-Pet part 1. Pets like llamas and horses are pretty big animals but less prevalent so we’ll call them Medi-Pet part 2. Reptiles are somewhat popular so we’ll call them Medi-Pet part 3, birds can be part 4, and small mammals will be part 5.

Unfortunately coverage under Medi-Pet parts 3, 4, and 5 represent some very specialized and therefore expensive treatment, so unfortunately, due the shortage of vets, we’ll just have to delay treatment until there are enough vets to do the job. What’s that you say? Your rabbit won’t live that long? Well, I’m so sorry, but just think of the wonderful stew you’ll have! Oh, I’m really sorry, Stew was his name, too.

One of the issues of course is people with more than one pet. Forget about the cat hoarder who maintains a household of 20 or more felines, but instead let’s focus on dog breeder and see where that train of thought leads us… Now, normally, your dog breeder has SOME reluctance to overproduce dogs, there are of course DEMAND restrictions like how many people actually want a dog… many people who can’t afford to take proper care of a dog don’t get one. BUT NOT ANYMORE! We could expect that free pet care would increase demand for pets… moreover, pet producers would have an incentive to breed more pets… and it will all lead the deaths of many, many pets. You see, training veterinarians is a long process while breeding pets is not. Therefore, there will be an initial rush to buy pets, which will further backlog veterinarians offices and this means that many pets who need healthcare will not get it because it will quickly become too cumbersome to actually get an appointment… and thus many people who THOUGHT they had access to pet care now come to realize that FREE healthcare and ACCESS to healthcare are two separate issues.

So people who want one pet can have them, but so too will people who already have one or more pets. So our dog breeder who, say has one breeding female with 15 puppies a year, gets 16 dogs worth of coverage… and YOU pay for it. As a matter of fact, you are subsidizing the dog breeding business. The dog breeder can now afford to expand her operation and breed twice a year and now get another 15 puppies worth of care.  And the added cost to you dear taxpayer lives as long as those puppies live… the health care doesn’t end when the puppies are sold, they just get passed on to a new owner… and you keep getting the bill.

“But I have allergies!” You might say, “I can’t own a pet, much less two!”  You my friend have just bumped into ‘moral hazard’. The government has picked the winner, in this case anybody with a pet, and you my runny nosed friend, have lost. You gain NO benefit from the Medi-pet program and you will still pay to pick up the tab. The government has set a precedent for this sort of thing of course and there is no use bitching about it (pun intended)… you might already be a winner in one of them. Do you own a home? (tax benefit) Did you own a clunker and turn it in? (rebate) Have you purchased a hybrid car? (tax incentive) Did you recently buy a digital antenna converter? (Government voucher)

You see, your local politician will someday make you a ‘winner’, it’s inevitable, and you will take advantage of it, and when you protest someday when you are the loser (and that’s inevitable too) your local politician will say… “Why was it good for you then and not you now?”, and he will proceed to ignore you or call you a pet hater (pet racist? species racist!), evil, nazi, un-American, or just say that you’re too scared to change the current pet health care system because you don’t know enough about it (you ignoramous!).

Two of Knuckles' old dogs, RIP boys...

…O I could go on and on… but I think you all are getting the picture…

~SK