protectionist
Diamond Member
- Oct 20, 2013
- 57,822
- 18,735
- 2,250
Fewer things are more important to those of us who are PET OWNERS, than the health and life or death of our pets. No matter whether we have a dog or cat or parrot or horse or whatever we have, most of us consider our pets to be part of the family. That being said, it is amazing that so little notoriety is given to the huge issue of pet insurance, and our capability to keep our pets ALIVE.
What is needed to do that, for those of us who are not quite wealthy, at some point in time, is pet insurance. The problem is that unlike human doctors and hospitals, who simply take a plastic card from you, check your insurance, and give you your care (and the doctor/hospital gets reimbursed later), veterinarians require immediate payment. You must pay for your pets care (surgeries can costs many thousands of $$$), UP FRONT, or the surgery doesn't get done, and your pet dies.
Sounds crazy. Yes, that's because it is crazy. And it is so ingrained this way, that everyone in the veterinarian BUSINESS seems to take it very nonchalantly, as normal procedure. I see it as INSANE procedure, and I call upon every pet owner to be up in arms over this, and contact your US congressmen, senators, and state legislators to do something about it. I hate to reduce it to those terms, but I'm afraid that's right where it's at, folks.
The veterinarians have a strong lobbying group working for them, but they are nowhere near as strong as the votes of millions of pet owners, who care to keep their pets alive and well. That lobbying group is the AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Assn). They contribute money to members of both the US House & Senate, and a 2014 list of recipients is included in the link at the bottom of this page. If your legislator(s) is on this list, you should call them and demand that they stop taking money from the AVMA, and sponsor legislation to require veterinarians to simply treat your pet's care the same way your human doctor treats your care.
Lastly, I will say that, as a former business owner, I am probably just as much against the govt interfering in the affairs of private business as anybody else, but this is much more than just that. This is veterinarians, and their AVMA goons interfering in the lives of our pets, and endangering them, by putting up needless barriers to their critical medical care when they need it. The greatest hospitals and surgeons of humans in the world, accept the policy of reimbursement TO THEM from insurance companies. If they can do that, so can veterinarians.
https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac...132&cycle=2014
What is needed to do that, for those of us who are not quite wealthy, at some point in time, is pet insurance. The problem is that unlike human doctors and hospitals, who simply take a plastic card from you, check your insurance, and give you your care (and the doctor/hospital gets reimbursed later), veterinarians require immediate payment. You must pay for your pets care (surgeries can costs many thousands of $$$), UP FRONT, or the surgery doesn't get done, and your pet dies.
Sounds crazy. Yes, that's because it is crazy. And it is so ingrained this way, that everyone in the veterinarian BUSINESS seems to take it very nonchalantly, as normal procedure. I see it as INSANE procedure, and I call upon every pet owner to be up in arms over this, and contact your US congressmen, senators, and state legislators to do something about it. I hate to reduce it to those terms, but I'm afraid that's right where it's at, folks.
The veterinarians have a strong lobbying group working for them, but they are nowhere near as strong as the votes of millions of pet owners, who care to keep their pets alive and well. That lobbying group is the AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Assn). They contribute money to members of both the US House & Senate, and a 2014 list of recipients is included in the link at the bottom of this page. If your legislator(s) is on this list, you should call them and demand that they stop taking money from the AVMA, and sponsor legislation to require veterinarians to simply treat your pet's care the same way your human doctor treats your care.
Lastly, I will say that, as a former business owner, I am probably just as much against the govt interfering in the affairs of private business as anybody else, but this is much more than just that. This is veterinarians, and their AVMA goons interfering in the lives of our pets, and endangering them, by putting up needless barriers to their critical medical care when they need it. The greatest hospitals and surgeons of humans in the world, accept the policy of reimbursement TO THEM from insurance companies. If they can do that, so can veterinarians.
https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac...132&cycle=2014