If you have pets, you need pet health insurance

[zdashamber]

Ask yourself, do I have $6000 sitting around that I can spend tonight on my cat? I'm guessing the answer is "I need pet health insurance, which is only about $20 a month, but which I have to buy before my cat is too old, because more than 10 or 11 years old means there's no one who will insure my cat."

$6000 is the price after your cat catches his leg on something while jumping off it and breaks the leg: it covers taking your cat to the emergency vet in the middle of the night to get him painkillers and antibiotics, and then getting the leg pinned together again later. At least 6K. It's probably more than that, because Flat Hair Girl, who had this experience, did not have that kind of money.

I'll tell the story sometime, and it's sad and you might not want to read it, though the cat lives. But the main point of this post is, veterinary bills have gotten insane, and you might not have known. Maybe things are better if you don't go to Berkeley, home of enormously rich people. But I'm thinking that the cost drivers are systemic. This is my hypothesis: 1. Drugs: crazy expensive due in part to the drug war. Ketamine, frex, is both abusable and a veterinary anaesthetic. 2. Veterinary "guild" attitude: frex, there's only one state school in all of California (pop. 60M) that gives out veterinary degrees, and it's damn hard to get into the veterinary program at Davis; and veterinarians from other countries have insane hoops to jump through to be able to practice in America. 3. Pet Health Insurance. Yeah, this ain't a scene, it's a goddamned arms race: once people started thinking "why can't my cat have chemo?" they needed insurance, and then when a decently large number of people got insurance the vets could start charging $4000 for an amputation, which according to Flat Hair Girl was only $300 20 years ago in Illinois.

Comments

[arden-ranger.livejournal.com]

I was sitting here thinking "$6,000.00? That's just crazy talk. When Samson broke his leg (and had internal bleeding), it was only $350.00 to fix him up."

Then I recalled I was in Springfield, MO at the time, and it was almost 25 years ago.

But that's still craziness.

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

It's jaw-dropping. Health care costs for pets are going nuts just like health care costs for humans, I guess. Hopefully out where you are things are less insane... The Bay Area is probably second only to LA or New York in terms of prices for this kind of thing... But still, you might want to think about calling some vets to check.

[mechanteanemone.livejournal.com]

ONE veterinary program? Seriously? Un-effing-believable.

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

I just googled to confirm, and on a quick scan I can't even see a private school in California that offers veterinary degrees. Vet techs, sure, but not doctors. It is astonishing. Davis can't be the only place to create vets in the whole state.

[kathryn-ironic.livejournal.com]

iirc, every state has one vet school, that's it.

The price for vet training has gone up much, much faster than regular undergraduate tuition--that could be part of the price increase.

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

Do you know why there's only one vet school per state?

[cochese.livejournal.com]

The downside to having seven cats is that we are utterly screwed when it comes to vet bills. If we pay for insurance, that means admitting to some outside agency that we have more than the legal limit of cats within the city limits. (Or, what I understand is the legal limit. I can't actually find anything online.) On the other hand, getting checkups for them is a nightmare. =P

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

I was wondering how possible insurance fraud would be... "Why, yes, this is my 'seven' year old cat 'Fluffy', who is the cat whose insurance I'm paying for..." This is why I'm not a lawful good character.

Your house seems quite safe for cats. That really must be something when you have to take them in for checkups...

[cochese.livejournal.com]

It's been rare. De-worming has required us to take a few cats in on different occasions. We took the kittens in when we first got them just to make sure they had all their shots and stuff before exposing the other cats to them. (They had been entirely outdoors before.) Antibiotic cream for a goopy eye. A couple emergency trips, one of which was a one way trip. The other was turned out to be the slightly embaressing "feline herpes."

nakedvillainy tries to keep a close eye on the cats' health, doing quick and simple assessments on them as best she can. Some of our cats are getting into the teens, though, so I imagine later-life illnesses will start to creep in.

[a2macgeek.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, both of my cats are 11 years old. I just have to cross my fingers.

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

They're indoor cats, though, right? Anyway, hope they have chill lives.

[a2macgeek.livejournal.com]

Mostly indoor - one of them gets tied outside.

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

*eeek* well, I'm hosed, because Miss Snickers is going to be 13 in August...
I hope your housemate's kitty recovers well.