Children Deserve Veterinary Care Too

This year, Americans will spend about $9.8 billion on health care for their pets, up from $7.2 billion five years ago. According to the New York Times, New York’s leading pet hospitals offer CT scans, MRI’s, dialysis units, and even a rehab clinic featuring an underwater treadmill, perhaps for the amphibians in one’s household. A professor who consults to pet health facilities on communication issues justified these huge investments in pet health to me by pointing out that pets are, after all, “part of the family.”

Well, there’s another category that might reasonably be considered “part of the family.” True, they are not the ideal companions for the busy young professional: It can take two to three years to housebreak them; their standards of personal hygiene are lamentably low, at least compared to cats; and large numbers of them cannot learn to “sit” without the aid of Ritalin.

I’m talking about children, of course, and while I can understand why many people would not one of these hairless and often incontinent bipeds in their homes, it is important to point out that they can provide considerable gratification. There’s a three-year-old in my life, for example, who gives me many hours a week of playful distraction from the pressures of work. No matter how stressed I am, she can brighten my mood with her quavering renditions of the ABC song or “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

She has health insurance, as it turns out, and generally high quality care. But you can never be too sure. So I went to the website of VPI Pet Insurance, one of the nation’s largest animal companion health insurers, to see what kind of a policy I could get for her. In the application form, I listed her as a three-year-old mixed breed dog – a description made somewhat plausible by the fact that her first words, spoken at the remarkable age of 10 months, were “ruf ruf” and “doggie outside.” When I completed the form and clicked to get a quote I was amazed to see that I get her a “premium” policy for a mere $33 a month.

But, you may be wondering, could a veterinarian handle common children’s ills? On the hopeful side, let me cite the case, reported in June by Bob Herbert of the New York Times, of Diamonte Driver, a 12-year old boy who died recently from an abscessed tooth because he had no insurance and his mother could not afford $80 to have the tooth pulled. Could a vet have handled this problem? Yes, absolutely.

Or there’s the case of 14-year old Devante Johnson, also reported by Herbert, who died when his health insurance ran out in the middle of treatment for kidney cancer. I don’t know exactly what kind of treatment he was getting, but I suspect that the $1.25 million linear accelerator for radiation therapy available at one of New York’s leading pet hospitals might have helped. The Times article also mentions a mixed breed named Bullwinkle who consumed $7000 worth of chemotherapy before passing on to his reward. Surely Devante could have benefited from the same kind of high quality pet care, delivered at a local upscale animal hospital.

It may seem callous to focus on children when so many pets go uninsured and without access to CT-scans or underwater treadmills. But in many ways, children stack up well compared to common pets. They can shed real tears, like Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs. They can talk as well as many of the larger birds, or at least mimic human speech. And if you invest enough time in their care and feeding, they will jump all over you when you arrive at the door, yipping and covering your face with drool.

The Senate Finance Committee has approved a bill that would expand state health insurance cover for children (S-CHIP) to include 3.2 million kids who are not now covered (but leaving about 6 million still uncovered.) Bush has promised to veto this bill, on the grounds that government should not be involved in health coverage. If does veto the bill, the fallback demand should be: Open up pet health insurance to all American children now! Though even as I say this, I worry that the president will counter by proposing to extend euthanasia services to children who happen to fall ill.

Comments

[akinoluna]

Wow...yeah, pets are nice but $7000 worth of chemo for a dog? While kids are dying from tooth problems?

[buena]

Barbara, I think you're on to something here. I often wish I could go to the vet instead of the doctor; my dogs get much better medical care than I do, and it's affordable. Forget healthcare reform -- just give people access to veterinary care.

[Lulu Maude]

Great post, and in the week after Dubya vetoes children's health insurance, lest it threaten privatized health care. Sheesh.. Best go for the vet's health insurance, I guess. Does this include kennel care when Mum and Dad go to Vegas?

[Hattie]

Make sure they have all their shots and have been wormed and flea protected.
Which reminds me: I have to board my animals so I can go away to see my grandkids.

[roger]

it appears that barbara is insisting that it is a travesty that some folks choose to purchase pet insurance and send ill pets to apparently specialized animal hospitals while at the same time there are children without health insurance. is there a direct relationship between these circumstances in any degree, shape or form. the implication that president bush would consider extending euthanasia services to children is particularly galling. she would now be the 15,006th person from the left to offer the patently flaccid comparision of bush's policy and politics to hitler's atrocities. if i have a bushel of apples must this circumstance require that each child also have an apple. is it in actual fact any consideration of mine if someone pays $7000 for chemotherapy for a canine. is there any relationship between access to pet care and access to health insurance. it is from just such insipid, disconnected comparisons that i see how illogical many of the arguements are which have origin from the liberal/socialist camps.

[Justin K.]

Roger,

Barbara is not saying that it's a travesty to get your pets health care. I think the point of this blog is to say human-beings (especially children) should be able to get low cost health insurance as well.

[Steve St-Laurent]

Roger [above], who can't find the Shift key, presents a character straight out of Dickens. Read it again and picture it coming from the mouth of Alistair Sim's Scrooge. See what I mean? I'm on my fourth dog in 35+ years. Their cumulative medical costs are as close as this Canuck wants to get to the American medical care and insurance business model.

[Tim Worstall]

Pet insurance does not have Govt involvement, It is a purely free market. As Barbara notes, it works, very well in fact.
Thus her solution to an insurance system, half of which is indeed provided by the Govt (and the other half highly regulated by it) which does not work is that the Govt should be more involved in it.

Err, hello?

[roger]

steve, can you tell us about folks who choose to circumvent universal health care and instead opt to utilize private health insurance when consulting a doctor in canada. it seems that these folks would not need to go on a waiting list for common aliments. i would be disturbed if folks who self pay would also be required to go on the waiting lists for everday services. this is not an attempt to be provocative. i am seeking your opinion and some information.

[Stargeezer]

Roger: If you hold on to your bushel of apples while watching someone less fortunate starve you could rightly be classed a greedy, selfish bastard.

[Steve St-Laurent]

Roger: There is no self-pay in the Canadian public health system. We do have some folks with lots of money who go elsewhere to avoid the queues. The system isn't perfect. We do have rationing by way of wait lists. The common argument made for people who purchase their health care abroad is that it frees up demand on the public system. For that matter, public providers here will sometimes purchase some surgical services in the U.S. to shorten the waiting times. Some years ago, when I was awaiting a kidney transplant and receiving dialysis three times a week, I took some small satisfaction in the fact that the person at the next dialysis station might be a millionaire or a welfare recipient. What we all had in common was need and a system that treated us on the basis of that, not the size of our wallets. But to reach this point requires seeing health care as a basic human need, not a consumer luxury.

[roger]

star, surely you have a better response than sophmore name calling. if folks want their apple they may go to the medicaid office, medicare office or the hospital emergency room which is prohibited by law to refuse medical services. if the charges are more than they can afford they can apply for charity care at the hospital. i work in a food stamps and medicaid office. there are ways to get emergency care. this is emergency care which i have already paid for through higher insurance premiums so that others may have access to this care. the question is not black and white. as for selfish i pay a lot in the form of taxes, fees, and surcharges for services i may or may not use. government is an impersonal, inefficient means of service delivery. i see how inefficient medicaid functions and this is why i would hesitate to commit the care of all americans to the government in the form of universal health care.

[Anarcissie]

roger: '... government is an impersonal, inefficient means of service delivery. ...'

True, but in some areas there does not seem to be any other practical means. Capitalism, which has proved so effective at providing some goods and services, has not done well with medical care at all, and is doing particularly badly in the U.S. at present.

One alternative would be consumer cooperatives -- in the case of medical care, client-owned HMOs. But most people aren't interested. Perhaps the heroic - authoritarian mystique of medicine, promoted in so many TV shows and movies, scares people off.

That seems to leave the government, for all practical purposes, unless you have another suggestion.

[roger]

government intervention for alleviating the medical need of those who find themselves in a tight spot does not need to lead to universal coverage. i would support a much strengthen saftey net for those who cannot negotiate private insurance however this safety net should fall well short of universal coverage. the root cause for all of these cost issues and coverage issues is that health care is entirely too expensive. much of this goes away if health care were much less costly. i happen to agree that health care should be treated as a basic need and not a commodity as steve has remarked.

[Larry In Lethbridge]

Left , right, center. Is is possible to adopt universal healthcare in the US, while maintaining the capitalist nature of most all the other industries ?

It works in all the other countries discussed here. I think their economies are "healthier" as a result.

Peoplethat reject Universal health care coverage based on principle that it might turn you into Socialists need to read up on it more.Do the research and find it ain't that bad.

Your nation is in serious trouble. You need to stop the bleeding folks. An having a health care system to make sure everyone is healthy, including the "rich" is necessary.

I know more wealthy Americans than poor ones. They don't like having to pay thousands every month when they see me , their peer, unencumbered without these wacky monthly payments.

Oh, yes I forgot. I am in 50 % tax bracket too.

[Lulu Maude]

I spent many years working in public schools, not even particularly poor ones, in which about half the children didn't see any health care professional mightier than our school nurse.

[Laura]

Roger - wikipedia sarcasm. I wouldn't eat an apple from your bushel if I was dying from starvation. I hate the taste of Republican. Republicans, actually, are the first things to come to mind when I hear the phrase "patently flaccid."

[roger]

this is not a partisan issue.

[Anarcissie]

roger -- Actually there are several different issues involved with the provision of and payment for medical care. Only is one is that a substantial number of people can't pay for it. Another is that the many who can pay for it pay a lot and get poor service from the existing system. I think there is also a serious issue about the quality of the care itself, which has been discussed previously on this blog. As you note much of this seems to come back to price, a price which is mysteriously unaffected by competition.

[Larry In Lethbridge]

Hey Rog,

I am surprised you feel this way especially since you work in a medicaid /food stamps office. Real compassionate fella Uh ?

Ever speak to anyone who "weathered" the Depression" and was forced to use soup kitchens and take menial work just to subsist ? Some good books on the subject.I suggest reading a few of them and that might make your apple seem a little less bitter.

[roger]

apparently i am not following you larry. this is a nonpartisan, technical proposition: can the government provide universal coverage at a price which will not exaust the source of the revenue (middle class taxpayers) and at the same time provide medical services which are at once appropriate to the needs of the masses (the ruling class will seek private doctors) and also acceptable to the service providers (physicians). my opinion is that the government is too inflexible to address the medical needs of its citizens and will not pay the service providers the charges that highly educated health care professionals will expect to be paid. my experience working with medicaid is the model for government issued and regulated health service delivery which i utilize in order to come to any conclusion regarding whether the federal government could be the service delivery provider. my experience with medicaid seems to suggest that the answer to that question is no. i have no affinity to private health insurance companies. on the other hand the federal government is ill equipped to provide these services. the cost of health care will not decrease. the cost will simply be shunted off to the middle class and there will be a significant tax increase to pay for it. there is no solution to the problem until the cost of health care as a whole is significantly decreased.

as for literature the finest depiction of class struggle and desperate circumstance is an excellent book: let us now praise famous men by james agee. mr agee follows the daily work and struggle of three sharecropper familes in alabama during the summer of 1936. these are cotton tenants. these families live on the landlords property and are dependent on the landlords for all of their needs. it is heartrending description of truly injured and damaged folks.

when one works at the food stamp office one sees how government works. as i have said previously i have interviewed hundreds of families and have witness how government has failed them time and again.

[Laura]

"she would now be the 15,006th person from the left to offer..." - you throw out terms like "left" and "liberal" and you MAKE it a partisan issue. In this context those are political buzzwords, not directional terms or how thick a spread of mayo you want on your bologna sandwich.

[AlexG]

Well i think that providing everybody with a vision and dental plan is a good way to start.

[Chris S.]

To me health care is indeed a basic human right but there those that compare it to the purchase of soup or nuts. So they argue should everyone get free soup and nuts? It's pure sophistry in place of logic not to mention an elegant way to defend selfishness.

[roger]

how we fix the cost of simple health care coverage and practice should not be a partisan issue.

when folks imply that bush would be inclined to extend euthanasia to children is a partisan issue.

i was simply referring to the nonsense in the original commentary.