Pet Health Insurance and Malpractice Lawsuits.
There was an article in last Sunday's Parade Magazine pushing pet health insurance. And part of the fallout from the recent, and apparently ongoing, pet food contamination and recall is a resurgence of interest in the possibility of monetary awards for emotional pain and suffering for owners of pets. Both of these could cut extra pieces out of "the pie" that you pet owners provide. You might have to start baking a bigger pie and set a couple more places at the table.
A small percentage of people with pet health insurance will save money but in the long run, on average, like all true insurance, you will pay more in premiums than what it would cost to pay the vet bills yourself. It's simple arithmetic - the insurance company has to pay the vet bills plus their overhead, and also make a profit. And most pet owners have several pets through their adult lives so in most cases things will average out.
Pet health insurance may protect you against "catastrophic loss" but catastrophic loss is different with pets. You're not likely to have a veterinary bill of more than a few thousand dollars. I think most people who can come up with the money to pay monthly health insurance premiums on all your pets could probably come up with five or ten thousand dollars, even if it required a short term loan. Rather than give an insurance company money every month, you would be far better off to pay the same amount into a "pet health savings account."
If pet health insurance becomes widespread, veterinary bills will increase. The pressure that you consumers of pet health care keep on us providers of health care helps keep prices under control. If you have insurance, that will not be as important to you. The insurance companies may exert some control over prices, but they can also just raise your premiums. As has happened in human medicine, once insurance becomes a necessity, insidious and incremental increases in premiums will be more likely to slip by under your radar.
Monetary awards for emotional pain and suffering will also increase your vet bills. Malpractice insurance for veterinarians is still cheap compared to that for doctors whose practice is limited to humans. In human medicine if there is any serious complication of surgery, especially if it involves the birth of a baby, someone is probably going to get sued, and there will probably be a settlement. Doctors have to pay those settlements in the form of the huge malpractice premiums they pay every year. Which is to say, you have to pay for them when you pay your doctor bills. Or to be completely accurate, when you pay for your health insurance, you also pay a share of the insurance company overhead and profit, the doctor's malpractice insurance premiums, plus the cost of your treatment and some profit for the doctor. And if your employer provides health insurance that is part of your paycheck you never even get to see.
Malpractice claims in human birth complications, even if the doctor is not at fault, are hard to defend. It is easy for a lawyer to exploit the mental anguish and emotional distress of grieving parents. You can be sure lawyers will similarly exploit the suffering of an innocent dog or cat.
In human medicine, health insurance and malpractice awards have become a sort of necessary evil that you have to pay for. In pet health care, you only pay for health care for your pet. I would think you'd want to keep it that way.