Need Affordable Healthcare? Grow a Tail.

Yesterday, my wife dropped our two young cats off at the vet to get spayed.  Our vet keeps animals overnight for observation with this procedure, so we picked them up from the vet this morning.

As I typically do, I reviewed our bill from the vet.  It cost us $124 to spay one cat.  Here's what we got for $124:

• Anesthesia
• An ovariohysterectomy
• Pain medications during surgery
• Medications for post-surgery pain
• Overnight care

So, basically, we got a hysterectomy and a 24 hour hospital stay for $124.

This begs the question:  Why the hell is healthcare for humans so damned expensive?

The cost for a human hysterectomy is typically $8,000 - $10,000.  That means it costs at least 65 times more for a human hysterectomy than an animal hysterectomy. 

Back in 2008, our shih tzu, Lexi, mysteriously punctured her eye.  Our regular vet performed emergency surgery to save her eye by suturing her cornea and covering it with a conjuctival flap.  She stayed in the hospital for 3 days.  The surgery, hospitalization, and all medications cost us $360.80.

The average cost of a day of inpatient hospital care for humans in Kentucky is around $1,500.   If Lexi had been human, her hospital say alone would have cost $4,500.

I'm not saying that the cost to treat humans should be as low as it is to treat animals.  But the gap in cost should not be so wide.  Humans are animals, after all.  Vets and doctors use many of the same basic medications and procedures.

The next time I'm sick or need surgery, I think I'm going to borrow a tail from my ex-husband and go to my vet instead of my doctor.  It couldn't hurt to try, right?