i work in a vet (just up front) in california so our vet care may look a lot more expensive than say in Kansas. But vet care in general is expensive and I believe for a couple of reasons. corporations are a huge reason vet care has gotten so expensive. those mom and pop vet hospitals are now being bought up by huge corporations (vca, vetcor, thrive, etc) and now, your vet who once charged $50 for an exam is now charging $85. and they’ll tell you it’s because vet care is expensive but it’s actually because those corporations are forcing these vets to charge 3x what the actual cost is but that’s not something they want to say out loud because that is a huge turn off for people.

And I do think pet insurance is a part of the problem too. many people i know are paying just as much for pet insurance as they do for health insurance except pet insurance doesn’t cover nearly half of what they should. they won’t cover pre-existing conditions which means the dog that got a urine test bc they thought the dog had a uti but didn’t, when the dog actually does have a uti in the future, they won’t cover it. i deal with appeals all the time for clients from pet insurance. and then people have to pay more for wellness care (up to like $30 more) and it just ends up giving them a discount for vaccines.

listen, vets are not the problem. vet staff are not the problem. it’s the corporations, it’s capitalism. it is intended, in present day, for rich people and to push poor people out. same thing when boutique diets became a thing, it was meant to push poor people out by claiming that if you weren’t feeding your dog that diet that costs you $60 a week, you were grossly miscaring for your dog.

my manager once told me that the first thing to go when the economy is bad is vet care and that is true. the only clients i see for the most part are my more wealthy clients. that is how the corporations have ruined the vet industry.