This is a fairly old
idea as well, but it got complete just about over 2 years ago due to quite dire
circumstances.
The idea is
originally a more "Swedish" and to a large extent Nordic/Scandinavian
one in its full description since it mostly applies to the Swedish societal and
tax system, as well as perhaps culture. It is also described as situated from a
Swedish perspective. However in the interest of debate and public opinion it is
here presented more loosely with focus on its core principles. If you like it,
you are most welcome to use it.
The Swedish version
(in Swedish) can be found here (not published yet, will be updated soon).
Healthcare for
animals
Healthcare for
animals isn't by far anything unusual today, on the contrary. However this as a
system that is self-financed, and thus isn't in its extent and details as
integrated and well financed as a comparatively full healthcare system would be
or is in many countries for people. Those parts of the animal healthcare system
that cover cattle and such (mostly non pet/companion animals) are both
regulated and have oversight, but others do not.
And herein lies an
issue I'd like to bring up.
The healthcare for
pets.
Todays it is
financed by the pet owners - which is fine but could get better.
Pets and
urbanization
All the more people
globally move to and live in urban areas, and as the trend continues now there
will be more urban areas in the near future. However while living in a city
does mean giving up on more rural type of living, farming and animal husbandry,
that doesn't seem to apply to pets (primarily dogs and cat's but also all other
sorts of animals today).
People like keeping
pets around and that isn't dependent on income - even when it seemingly is far
to expensive to be reasonable.
And pets also get
ill as everyone else. Also a urban lifestyle does affect pets.
The problems with
singular self-financing today.
So no matter what
people seem to keep pets. It doesn't seem to get affected by income levels, if
one is single or not, or age.
And if people feel
lonely without pets that fine too. I do suspect quite many elderly people are
kept healthier, more mobile thanks to their pets.
Therefore I suggest
that it is in the public interest of a modern society to have a better pet
healthcare system. With the added benefit that new models for healthcare could
be tested there first before being translated and deployed to ordinary (human)
healthcare - due to the similarities between humans and the two big categories
of pets - cats and dogs.
Drawbacks of the
current system in Sweden and presumably large parts of the Big North/Western
world.
In order to
highlight would could be better, I'll start with listing the drawbacks with
today's system, as referenced by the Swedish one:
Self-pay + voluntary
insurance financed system seems to mean that:
- the pet owner(s) has to be financially fairly wealthy to cover more expensive ailments;
- that mostly pet's with more usual illness are the ones that can get remedied and are more economically viable to treat;
- that pet's with more rare or complex diseases are cheaper to euthanize then treat;
- that way animals with more rare and complex diseases don't come as often as it would be necessary with medical research in order to get proper statistics, do research and hopefully find a cure, thus also cheapening a cure and making it scalable and effective.
- Can't therefore properly contribute to the efforts of getting healthier pets by more than advising not breeding more unhealthy individuals - but that's something still many disregard.
- contributes partially to making research on some conditions affecting both dogs and humans go slower than it could be.
- Probably prevents having preventive healthcare and regular checkups for pet's.
All of this
contributes to more suffering for both the pet's themselves and the pet owners.
I am aware that many see pet's as being not as sensitive and intelligent as
humans - and to some extent it might be so - but more recent research seems to
indicate that we are a lot more similar than we'd like to admit.
A different system - modeled after a welfare model
So what do I
propose:
Basically a
separate, welfare, participatory healthcare system with three main goals:
- bringing cost down per mean individual and mean individual medical visit, better health, life expectancy and quality of life.
- Sufficient statistics for research, better patient and owner contact and matching with doctor and scientist, as well as better funding
- Preventive healthcare, including regular check-ups, tracking and advice.
One way of doing
that ae taxes on pets - that would be balanced to income but also have a
separate premium parts depending on how many participants there are in such a
collaboratory "welfare-modeled healthcare system". But I presume that
it would result in a cheaper overall costs per mean individual since that way
- there are more participants
- there can be budgetary planning and review
- Preventive healthcare should contribute keeping costs down in the long run, but not the short.
- Better tracking of actual populations of pets and their problems.
Another alternative
would be a system modeled after the Dutch healthcare system. It would still
entail mandatory participation - but you choose yourself the adequate level of
commitment to the health (insurance)system and its various actors - who can range
from companies to foundations that reinvest the profits. Which would be more
attractive to the more liberally or even conservatively inclined and perhaps
even better due to the possible choices.
All of this could
hopefully provide a better health, standard of life to primarily the pets and
the pet owners as well as ease it to the pet owners to be responsible by making
it easier to be a pet owner, especially in a urban setting of today's world.
And of course, if
one has more than one pet - there should be rebates.
And of course if a
state wishes to couple this with a voluntary or mandatory pet training courses,
that is also possible.
/Mark Kesper aka
Teheimar.
Geographer.
