Garrison Keillor: If people were pets, we'd have healthcare reform

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2009/09/02/healthcare/


We need a public pet option

Want empathy? Send weepy pet parents to town hall meetings waving photos of kittycats in need of new kidneys

By Garrison Keillor


Sept. 2, 2009 | I caught part of a radio call-in show the other day on which a vet was fielding questions about Addison's disease among basset hounds and a cocker spaniel's hypothyroid problem and what can be done about a bulldog who snores (he needs to lose weight), and it was interesting to discover the excellent medical care that dogs have come to expect these days. The vet was herself a dog parent, as she put it, and there was genuine feeling in her voice when she discussed the bassets' hormonal problems, something I haven't heard in the debate over healthcare for humans this summer.

snip//

There was real sympathy for the parent of the bassets with the adrenal deficiency, whereas the 48 million uninsured Americans (of whom two-thirds come from a family with at least one full-time worker) are merely a big fat statistic and so far Democrats have failed to produce a poster child. We can sort of imagine the misery of walking into an emergency room with no money, no plastic, no Blue Cross card, and trying to obtain treatment for some ailment that doesn't involve bone fragments protruding from the skin, but it doesn't speak to the heart the way an injured dog does.

Animals love us unconditionally and we love them back, maybe more than we love our neighbors, and that's just the truth, Ruth. People can be irksome, petty, especially raggedy ones -- poverty does not always bring out the best in folks -- and that's why it's difficult to get people to care about the uninsured.

If you put a pet option in the healthcare reform scheme, Republicans would be in a bind. It's one thing to oppose big government taking over from those little mom-and-pop insurance companies, but do you favor throwing Mr. Mittens out the car window when he gets old and feeble and needs an IV because he can't chew his kibble? You'd have weepy pet parents at town hall meetings waving photographs of kittycats in need of new kidneys, and finally you'd start to see some empathy. People love their animals, and if we could just agree that everybody in America should receive the same level of care enjoyed by an elderly golden retriever, we could be done with this and get ready for the World Series.

[stray cat]

1. How many people actually pay for health insurance for a pet

its expensive to treat pets!

[babylonsister]

2. You'd be shocked. Do a search of DU, pets + health care.

There's a bunch of threads.

Also, there's talk of tax deductions for health care expenses for pets. People, not so much. :crazy:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6237876

[customerserviceguy]

5. I just know that I wanted to hurl

when I saw an ad on TV for appetizer for cats!

[eShirl]

3. It's harder to "blame the victim" if they're a cute non-human. n/t

[MichellesBFF]

4. Funny

Rush Limbo was talking about how well the pet health industry works because people have to pay for the care themselves. Of course he didn't point out how some animals are put to sleep because their owners can't afford the necessary treatments. (and the analogy to the human healthcare industry is way too telling.) My vet has a gorgeous mastiff because the dog's former owner couldn't afford the orthopedic surgery he needed.

[Jade Fox]

6. "....and that's just the truth, Ruth."

Yes, it is.

[mudplanet]

7. It cost $80 every time I took my dog in to buy another bottle

of heart worm medication, and that was 20 years ago.

I got fed up and drove into a small town thirty miles away and found a country vet. The building had a corral next to it and looked like a kind of barn. When I walked in there was no one in the anteroom so I shouted out, "Anyone home?" A voice from inside the building replied, "Come on back." There was the vet leaning over a small bitch in the process of being spayed, assisted by the mailman, in uniform. Turns out that the mailman would pick up strays on his route, bring them in and assist the vet to fix them for adoption.

When I needed heart worm pills or medication for the dogs or cats the vet would just determine what I needed, grab an industrial sized bottle of the stuff and charge me a reasonable markup. In and out for $30, which is about what I'd pay for a visit to the doctor myself. Last time I visited his office the anteroom was full of old farmers talking. I asked about the vet and they said he's in the back, go on in. I walked down the hall to find him up to his armpit in horse delivering a colt. He talked to me about the dog while working.