Help!  I’m slipping under!  The quicksand of election blather has almost engulfed me and it’s only January!

I’m no political columnist.  My blog isn’t political, really.  I try not to write about politics because it only makes people angry.  I do write a good bit about culture, family, faith and medicine.

So, on an almost political note, I’ll delve into today’s epiphany.

In the election fervor to guarantee health-care to the world, in the constant drum-beat of ‘we need universal care, we need cheap but excellent care, we need free care’ etc., I have to ask, what about the animals?

Slow down, no angry notes.  I’m not asking for universal coverage for the veterinary needs of critters.  But after spending the afternoon in the vet’s office with my daughter’s injured dog, I began to wonder just how many of the people pouring in with assorted cat, dogs, and all the rest, actually pay for health insurance for themselves.

I saw elderly couples with pampered pets.  I know their medications are partly covered by Medicare now.  I saw young people who I can almost guarantee have no health insurance, bringing old, decrepit dogs for health-care.

And I wondered, how hard up are we if we’re willing to spend the untold millions, or probably billions of dollars Americans spend each year to get their pets health care that people around the world would love to have?  The money they spend to buy dog toys, cat beds, special dog food, arthritis medication, insulin and all the rest for animals?  And don’t even get me started on poor southerners and their collections of coon-hounds, hog-hounds, horses, donkeys, cattle, goats, etc., all without any thought of buying health insurance!

Are we that bad off when the animals get so much as they do?  Or is it that we need tax-subsidized care for humans so that they can continue to use their discretionary income on Spot’s hip replacement, Fluffy’s chemotherapy or Trigger’s broken femur?

I mean, there I was too.  I love animals.  But don’t poor mouth the world when you have plenty of money for things like expensive pet care, but none for your own prescription!  That’s one of the many things that make this whole topic of health-care seem a little disingenuous to me.

I just wonder, that’s all.  And by the way, Belle is spending the night with the vet to have her laceration repaired.  But don’t call me a hypocrite.  I wanted to do it myself but the vet said it was too deep.  And I pay a bundle for my family’s insurance.  Enough that, without the insurance bill, why I could probably have more dogs, a mule, a boa constrictor and who knows what…a monkey?

Edwin

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