Four grand.

That's how much it cost me to get back surgery — for my dachshund, Keaton.

No, I'm not nuts. Both I and my living room rug are fully aware that Keaton is a dog, and I'm not the kind of person who buys him holiday-themed doggie outfits, or any outfits, for that matter. But when an animal that's part of your family is dragging his hindquarters and unable to walk, what would you do? If he was elderly, I might have had him put to sleep, but there's plenty of life in the old guy yet.

Pet insurance, you say? Nope. Doxies are notorious for back problems and to to top it off, Keaton is a rescue dog, so we have no idea exactly how old he is or who his parents were. Pet insurance wasn't an option.

Animals today can get better medical treatment than people in Third World countries. The clinic that did Keaton's surgery has 9 vets on staff, and specialties like dermatology and opthamology. They even offer acupuncture, chiropractic, herbology and water and treadmill exercises for dogs with arthritis and other conditions.

If all of this seems off topic, it might be, except for a recently released Harvard study indicating that medical bills play a role in 62 percent of bankruptcies

(http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/la-fi-medical-bankruptcy4-2009jun04,0,4495714.story).

The really scary thing is that 78 percent of those people who filed bankruptcy had health insurance, which obviously doesn't cover everything.

Part of what makes modern medicine so wonderful (and so expensive) is the cost of diagnosis and preventative treatment. A big chunk of Keaton's hospital bill came from the cost of the spinal MRI, which determined exactly where the vet would operate.

The availability of doggie MRIs is just one indication of how far medical science has advanced. My mother died of colon cancer in 1988. Today, an unpleasant but routine procedure allows doctors to remove precancerous cells before they turn into anything worse. If this screening had been available 20 years ago, my mother might have lived to see her grandchildren.

A November 2008 study by the Brookings Institution weighs the problem of how trying to squeeze costs out of the health care system could result in a decrease in medical innovation. Mortality rates for cardiovascular disease have decreased 43 percent between 1950 and 2005, a direct reflection of medical innovations. Who wants to make the call to cut those costs? Not me.

http://www.brookings.edu/events/2008/~/media/Files/events/2008/1117_realhealthcare/1117_strategicreview.pdf

A lot of people in our industry are concerned about health care reform. I'm no fan of national health systems, which haven't seemed to have worked very well in other industrialized countries. On the other hand, after experiencing how expensive it can be to take care of a sick dog, I'd hate to be in a similar uninsured position if the sick person was myself or one of my kids.

Sorry, no answers here to what we should do about health care. I'm just really glad I'm not Max Baucus.

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