Pet Insurance

The following letter to the editor appeared in the 1/31/08 edition of the Winston-Salem Journal:

Pet Insurance
I laughed reading “Taking Care” (Jan. 22) about companies offering pet insurance. Something is wrong when pets are insured but some people aren’t.

I don’t have health coverage, and my husband’s company doesn’t allow him to claim me as his legal spouse. We are a gay couple, married in 2005 in Toronto, where I am from. Canada respects our marriage, and we would have free coverage there, but we live here because we want to be with our new granddaughter and we like our jobs.

Pet insurance in Canada would be no problem because Canadians have health care; pet care is just a natural extension (notice the biggest pet-insurance provider in the story is Canadian). That’s unlike here, where children are denied the basics and adults have died because of no private insurance or because private companies have refused to pay.

There’s good here in the United States, but offering pet insurance when millions of citizens go without — well, you be the judge.

I could not set this go by without a response, so I emailed the following letter to the editor (I was limited to 200 words or less. so I did it in 199 words)

Even though pets are legally considered property, the writer of the “Pet Insurance” letter of 31 January implies it’s wrong to insure them while there are people without health insurance. He apparently thinks it’s okay for him to insure his property, such as his vehicle, while it’s wrong for others to insure their property, such as their pets.

The writer, who is from Canada, which offers "free" health care, laments not having health insurance since moving here. Most people have a choice in respect to health insurance; they may choose to buy it, work for an employer that offers it, or live in a place that gives it to them. For those unable to take advantage of either of these choices, free health care is available through public and private agencies.

The writer says people here are dying due to a lack of health insurance or from denial of coverage. While this may be true in some cases, it’s also true that people are dying in Canada while waiting for an appointment to receive free health care, which is why so many Canadians come here to receive immediate health care, even though they have to pay for it.