By the time you read this, Mavric [sic] will be no more. She has been stowed for the last time in the plastic cat travel cage and trundled off to the vet for a last, affectionate stroke of a hand and a gently administered, lethal injection. Her last meal, largely uneaten, still lies slowly putrefying in the metal bowl on the kitchen floor. A pet's life ends when its owner concludes that the animal's quality of life would not be an acceptable burden for a sentient being to endure. Up to that point, though, it gets the best the owner can afford to give it. Sometimes, that's pretty damned good.
Today's premise is that, to a great extent, household pets get the health care they need, as a right, without having to do anything to "deserve it". They don't have to demonstrate an ability to pay. They don't have to be "productive" or "contributing members of society". They don't have to do anything except need attention. The caregiver does the best he or she can, automatically, without hesitation, to the extent that his or her means permit. To do otherwise would be inhumane, would it not?
As far as the animal can tell it's got socialized medicine. No one asks the cat or dog for its health insurance card, or to pay in advance by check or credit card if it does not have insurance. If the condition is life-threatening or would require expensive treatment, the caregiver is asked about euthanasia. (The right to life for the uncommunicative, terminally ill doesn't extend to those who would be unable to vote Republican.) If you can't pay, then they figure out something. They're there to help. They try to do what's best for the animal. Compassion is the principal motivation. Suffering is avoided to the extent possible. Choices are made, but never out of meanness or greediness.
So, what about people? It's a little different in this country.
- We treat health care as a commodity. It is bought and sold, traded for profit, bargained for and bartered without regard to the need of the consumer.
- All that matters in deciding if care is extended or not is if and how much will be paid. It doesn't matter if the payer is the individual, a family member, an insurance company or the government. Treatment will be denied or curtailed if the money stops.
- If you can't pay for services already received, you are ruined financially, losing your savings, home, car and any other assets you may hold. Bankruptcy has been reformed for ordinary people, so you can't force your creditors to settle for less than the full debt owed any more.
- Since it must be paid for directly rather than indirectly as a benefit of the publicly financed social infrastructure, health care is rationed. You get as much health care as you can personally afford, and not one aspirin more.
- Rationing by ability to pay means that the system to provide health care becomes a health care denial system. If you can pay, you do. If you can't, they do their best to keep you from getting the care you need.
- If you have insurance, they might pay for most of it, but there are some serious drawbacks to relying on insurance.
- You'll have to come up with the copay and deductible. If you can't, you're screwed.
- If you lose or quit your job when you're sick or a dependent needs care, they'll cancel your insurance. Remember, employer-supplied health insurance is for healthy people who don't need care.
- If you're old, Medicare will pay a lot, but not all of it. You may have to change doctors when you start getting Medicare because the government doesn't like to pay as much as some doctors think they should get. (If the doctor could only get what the government was willing to pay, then we would have more choice, wouldn't we?)
- If you lose your job, but keep the health plan by paying the inflated premiums under the COBRA plan because you're getting treatment under it, the insurance company will milk that for six months of outrageous payments from you, then cut you off. When you try to get other insurance, you've got a pre-existing condition, which they won't cover. You're screwed.
- If you're already poor at the onset of your condition, you might get really lucky and qualify for full government funding of your care. (Cross your fingers!) Don't get better, though, because you might be expected to start paying. Same thing goes if you win the lottery.
- If you've got an interesting or dramatic disease, there might be a big-name foundation that specializes in treating your condition. They might let you just pay what you can because their high-powered fund raising campaign is based on the premise that no one is denied treatment because of inability to pay. Moral: Do not get an ordinary disease that no one cares about.
- If you have huge coffers of ready cash at hand to supplement the Cadillac health insurance plan that you pay for with your ill-gotten gains, courtesy of the Reagan/Bush/Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, bully for you. You can even get health care you don't really need, like silicon breasts and buttocks, face lifts and hair transplants. Life is sweet.
Note that the only scenario under which an individual is guaranteed to get all the health care they could reasonably need is when the individual is rich. If you're not, you may not get enough, or any at all. If you're sick as a cat, you might die in the street, not necessarily like a dog, because we have plenty of animal shelters and philanthropists to care for our sick doggies and kitty cats, but like a resident of some Brazilian favela or an impossibly crowded Mumbai slum. (Jai ho!)
Yes, I know this is nothing new, and that I'm preaching to the choir in this forum. And, for heaven's sake, don't get off on some tangent about how I'm not sensitive to the plight of animals. I feel plenty winsome about the girlfriend having to make the painful decision to snuff her cat. Let's focus on the important distinction here.
People are more likely to assert that other people should not receive medical care they can't afford than they are to assert that sick pets should be summarily killed.
This is not hyperbole. I've tested this premise over and over. Here's the most recent occurrence. At Easter dinner, an over-60 Republican white man looked me straight in the eye and told me that people have "no right" to health care they can't pay for. My children, who are not covered by medical insurance, were in the room and listening. I pointed to them and asked him, "So, if I or they can't pay for medical care we need, we should die rather than be treated in a facility supported by your taxes? Have I got that right?"
His answer was an unhesitating, "Yes." Just to be clear, I asked again if he was totally unwilling to pay any taxes to provide guaranteed medical care for me and my children. He was resolute. "No, I don't want to pay for your kids' health care. That's your responsibility."
Oh, good grief. He just doesn't get it, does he? He's not alone, either. The last time I had this discussion with another delusional Republican, the bottom line was exactly the same. I'll quote her verbatim. "I'm not paying for your children's health care!"
That's it. They don't want to pay for my children's health care. The idea that their children might someday need health care they couldn't afford and that I might be able to countenance paying taxes to supply it was totally unfathomable. They're not only selfish and mean-spirited, but remorseless sociopaths as well. A pox on them!
Therein lies the crux of my premise. I'll bet you wouldn't be able to easily find people to be as callous and insensitive about dogs, cats or horses as they clearly are about me and my children. It's unthinkable in this country for an animal to die like a dog, but it's just fine for those people.
The insensitive, "self-reliant" blowhards all think that bad things only happen to others. When it hits them, they are dumbstruck by the cruelty of fate and unabashedly beg for alms. They launch telethons and bake sales to pay their medical expenses. They shamelessly panhandle, bullying their lodge brothers in the bar to pony up to subsidize tight-fisted, money-grubbing bastards like them who don't want to pay taxes for an adequate social infrastructure. The universal, free, public health care system they deride as "socialized medicine" is a luxury we can't afford until they need care. The next time one of these hypocrites tries to hit me up for money, I may tell them that I'm making a contribution to the local animal shelter instead. I wonder how that will sit with them.