Treat Me Like a Dog: What Human Health Care Can Learn from Pet Care

When it comes to health care, who gets treated better—man or man's best friend?

Of course, it's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison when you're comparing four-legged patients to people, and there are many ways in which human care tops pet care.

But pet owners told Reason.tv there are some ways where it would be a step up to be treated like a dog.




Pet owners like the convenience of animal care; they also like the client-focused atmosphere. "I think one of the things that human health care can learn from veterinary medicine is the client service side of things, the relationship side of things," says Dr. Peter Weinstein, executive director of the Southern California Veterinary Medical Association.

Various reasons explain why people often find animal care so pleasant, says Weinstein. One reason—animal care workers love what they do. Another reason—competition. 

Weinstein notes that vets work hard to differentiate themselves from their competitors because "there are a large number of vet hospitals, many located very closely to one another."

And vets know even more competitors could emerge because less red tape makes it easier to open an animal hospital. Weinstein recalls opening his clinic, which offered everything from X-rays to operations: "I believe it was 12 weeks from the time I signed the lease to the time I saw my first client. Try doing that with human health care."



It would take at least 20 times as long to open a comparable human hospital in California. It can take even longer in the 34 states with "certificate of need" (CON) laws, where state agencies—not consumers—decide how many hospitals there should be. These laws even allow existing hospitals to hold up plans for new hospitals. "The existing hospitals go in front of these government agencies and say, 'we don't need any competitors; we're taking fine care of the people,'" explains Reason magazine's Ronald Bailey.

Recently, certificate of need—often called CON law—provoked a showdown in Tennessee where frustrated residents resorted to protests and petition drives to pressure the state to green-light a new hospital.

Weinstein is happy veterinarians don't have to deal with anti-competitive CON laws, "In veterinary medicine we could have two practices right next to each other and then it's the consumer deciding to whom they want to go."

Consumer choice and competition—maybe we could use more of that in human health care.


"Treat Me Like a Dog" is written and produced by Ted Balaker, who also hosts. The director of photography is Alex Manning, the field producer is Paul Detrick and the animations were done by Hawk Jensen.

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[98nafets]

This is what infuriated me while watching that "health care summit" today. It is the government's fault that our costs so high. They mess with the free market and then claim that the free market failed.

[Libertarianist]

Glad I live in Colorado.

"Health care is too expensive because there are too many hospitals," my aching ass. That's fucking retarded!

[felpaluche]

Sometimes pets are better cared for than humans get.

[nphanlon1973]

At least the doctor won't put you down....oh I forgot...death panel.

[mrphoo67]

@PanzerDivisionBOM I agree We really need to get rid of all the mandates and regulations put on the insurance company.

[PanzerDivisionBOM]

@mrphoo67

Well...

There are greater barriers to entry than the state borders. Last I heard, there was something like 2000 pages of insurance regulation on the Federal level alone, the cost of compliance of which renders new entry into the market prohibitively expensive, but which can be relatively easily absorbed by protected firms. Also, the content of insurance packages must conform to very strict criteria - even if they wanted to, insurance companies probably couldn't follow your advice.

[mrphoo67]

@PanzerDivisionBOM Just remember health insurance are their to help manage the cost. people need to pay more out of pocket when it come to health care itself. We really to know full cost of our healthcare. That said your suggestion removing barriers to competition among state lines is defianlly part of the equation.

[PanzerDivisionBOM]

@mrphoo67

That's not a problem of insurance per se, but of restricted competition. If insurance companies were allowed to compete more freely, then their efforts to offer the best possible risk pooling would serve to drive down prices. And if political economy wasn't inherently isolated from consumer preference data, then medicare bureaucrats would be able to set terms at the competitive equilibrium.

Remember, the cheapest modern healthcare in history was provided through friendly societies.

[eathis12]

The biggest factor in health care costs is the the lawsuits. We give many uneeded testing because the government says they are liable if not. This is actually the same for countries with universal healthcare because they sue anybody they can with private money.

[mrphoo67]

@default013 sarcasm right?