We need healthcare reform for cats and dogs!
It’s nice when everything is free. AP:
health insurance plans must cover birth control for women with no copays. The requirement, affecting most insurance plans, is part of a broad expansion of women’s preventive coverage. Breast pumps for nursing mothers, an annual “well woman” physical, counseling on how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and other services will also be covered at no cost to the patient.
If you live in Washington, you probably think this is good and that the costs of doing all this just disappear into the ether. In the real world, however, Dinocrat Jr’s annual checkup now costs $750, as the insurance companies push costs hither and yon to compensate for all the services they are legally compelled to give away for “free”. But you knew all that, because you too live in the real world.
It’s a different point we want to dwell on today. Cats and dogs are being deprived the healthcare they deserve. It’s discriminatory! When Buttons the cat has her office visit, it runs less than $50, versus $750 for the humanoid. There are only two possibilities: (a) Buttons is unfairly being deprived decent healthcare because of corporate greed (we do understand that human healthcare is inherently more expensive, but let’s save that discussion for a later date, ok?).
Oh yes, there is that other possibility: (b) there is no insurance intermediary in the case of Buttons, so there’s a marketplace that actually works, and a much more direct link between supply and demand. Costs don’t have to be mushed around to compensate for previous distortions to the system. But that sort of thinking is probably too simplistic or worse, right?