Dollars and Jens
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
 
Why health care is so expensive

My brother notes the economic difference between healthcare for humans and animals. Certainly insurance and litigation are the major part of it, but I expect demand elasticity has something to do with it as well; a doctor is less in competition (price-wise) with other doctors than are veteranarians with other veteranarians, but the latter are also in tighter competition with "take it someplace peaceful and shoot it". This is true of pets, but even more of farm animals.

We also may care less about how much our animals enjoy their food, while more willingly buying junk for our kids and letting them pay to have their arteries scraped out later in life.



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