"If people were pets, we'd have health care reform"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.
I have not been a pet parent for 20 years so perhaps I'm not up to speed here, but back in the day, dogs slept in the garage or on the porch so they could defend the home against socialism, and if they snored, it definitely was their problem and not ours. Ditto hypothyroidism. And there was a death panel around whose name was Dad...
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...
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.
More at the Salon link.
the merits of whatever type of health care reform aside... that argument is just a good old fashioned non-sequiteur.
ReplyDeletePeople who have money pay to have their pets' illnesses taken care of and those that don't have them put down. I hope that is not the kind of health care system he is arguing for. His bald assertion that we care about our pets more than our neighbors is demonstrably false. Dogs do not have medicare, medicaide, SCHIP, etc. etc. and that is only government programs.
That isn't an argument against health care reform it is just that Keillor's (your title is misspelled) argument is just wrong.
"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"
Most elderly golden retrievers are allowed to get seriously ill and then put down.
Spelling fixed. Tx.
ReplyDeleteGood grief. On a call-in show hosted by a people-doctor, you'd hear exactly the same kind of concern, if not greater, for the individual sick humans being discussed.
ReplyDeleteOf course "poster children"--individual examples--are going to evoke more emotions than statistics.
Obama uses his grandmother as a "poster child" for the problems with health insurance and has several others he mentions in his speeches. "Poster children" are a common feature of political discussions--on both sides--about health reform.
Keillor is just off-base on this. I hope he's not suggesting we shouldn't give our pets the best medical care we can afford.
(Note: I do NOT mean we should try to keep our pets alive as long as possible once their quality of life deteriorates. Euthanasia is far preferable, IMHO, to putting them through uncomfortable medical procedures, as long as we don't have the ability to ask them their preference or have them draw up Living Wills.)
@ Swift - If you read Keillor's full original column (not my abstract), I think you'll see he's not mocking pet owners or pet care. See paragraph 4 at Slate.
ReplyDelete"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."
ReplyDeleteRead that closely and tell me that makes sense.
Let's try another equation and you'll see what I mean:
Vet discussing a dog's health problems = personal
A politician discussing health care = impersonal
One does not equal the other.
Which leads me to the conclusion that Gary Keillor is advocating The Shot for Grampa when the government health board decides not to pay for any more of his cancer treatments.
Actually, maybe he's right. Look at it this way:
ReplyDeleteVet care is not government supported. It is totally a free-market option.
Result, prices are low enough that we could afford treatments for pets that we cannot afford for people without reliance on health insurance.
Perhaps what we need is not a government program to artifically inflate the price of health care, but for government to get out of supporting the health care industry, and watch the prices fall.
Bill:
ReplyDeleteFew have said it better. You are spot on.
Deana
@minnesotastan--I never said, nor did I think, he was mocking pet owners or pet care. Not sure where you got that from in what I wrote. Nor does paragraph 4 in Salon (not Slate), or any of the rest of his column, make me think any more highly of his thesis.
ReplyDelete@Bill Peschel, medical care for pets is not so inexpensive that it's accessible to all, by any means. The only reason the "free market solution" works for pet care is that euthanasia for pets when medical treatment is unaffordable is not viewed with the same horror as it would be for humans.
@Swift - I must have misunderstood this sentence of yours -
ReplyDeleteKeillor is just off-base on this. I hope he's not suggesting we shouldn't give our pets the best medical care we can afford.
No matter. Moving on to other matters...
Treating people's health care as something to be purchased on the 'market' is immoral and sick. It's also absolutely ridiculous to talk about the (non-existing/never will exist) 'free market' in this way. When you get cut in half in an auto accident (like that poor chap) you can't shop around for the cheapest, best deal in the 'market' to get yourself taken care of.
ReplyDeleteAs we know now, the most 'free market' of health systems are the worst and most expensive. Period.
@minnesotastan--what did the sentence you quote have to do with mocking anybody for anything? There are people who argue quite seriously that spending money on pets is an unnecessary extravagance when there are people starving, dying from lack of medical care, etc. I don't think that's what he was suggesting, but it's hard to make any real sense of his column.
ReplyDelete