Rich Dogs

            My dog, Gracie, recently tore her ACL and had to have an expensive specialty surgery to repair it. I obviously care greatly about my dog, and she definitely had a physical problem that needed to be addressed, so it was an easy choice for my family to pay for her surgery.

However, there is a bit of an ethical dilemma here. There are many people, not only in third world countries but also in the United States, who cannot afford to get the proper medical care needed for their health problems. In an article from the New York Times, I learned that about 48 million Americans are currently living without healthcare (number comes from Census Bureau).

So, after my dog had surgery I started to wonder if it was really right to be providing specialty care like this to pets when many of our fellow Americans are forced to go without it. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not that I think it is wrong to provide care to animals. I love animals, especially my dog, but this is just a troubling situation. It really goes back to the idea of a divide between the rich and the poor.

For example, in the same article, the author cites a study that found that almost 25 percent of people in households that make under $25,000 a year do not have healthcare. Among the wealthy (households earning above $75,000 per year), under 8 percent did not have healthcare. This means that if you are living in a household whose annual income is less than $25,000, you are over three times as likely to lack healthcare than someone coming from a family with means! While poor people cannot afford to pay for proper medical care, people with means will often pay for not only their own care, but for the care of their animals. The idea of the rich having such luxuries as animal psychotherapists and pet acupuncturists contrasts sharply with follow human Americans who don't even have basic medical care.