Single-Payer Pet Care?
by John Goodman
Issue 115 - September 10, 2008

Did you know that almost anything doctors can do for humans they can do for our furry friends? MRI scans, renal dialysis, medication for arthritis, you name it-what's good enough for us is good enough for Fido. Eli Lilly is even marketing a new drug called Reconcile, which is Prozac for pets.

Pet care is big business. Americans spend about $50 billion a year on their pets and one-third of that amount is for health care. Further, most dogs and cats have health problems. Three-fourths of dog owners and more than half of all cat owners are giving their pets some sort of medication. (See NYT article )

So here is the obvious question:

Why does the market for pet care seem to work so much better than the market for human care? Not that I pay a great deal of attention to such things, but I believe it's fair to say that:

• No one is saying the market for pet care is "broken" or in "crisis."
• No one is saying that the market cannot work for pet care.
• No one is calling for mandatory pet health insurance.
• No one is calling for single-payer health insurance for pets.

But why not?

The answer is not obvious. Most pet owners view their pets as a member of the family.

They agonize over health care decisions for a pet as much as they might agonize over similar decisions for a child. End-of-life decisions can be painful and difficult for anyone.

Yet, if we agree that the veterinary market works better, could it be used as a model to reform the human care system?

John Goodman is President of the National Center for Policy Analysis

Post Script: Here are estimates of how many pets there are and how much we spend on them.