I would question that second assertion; given the rise of pet insurance, private equity buying up clinics, and the increases in cost of veterinary care entirely out of line with inflation, my suspicion is that we're in fact in the early stages of the buildout of a vet industrial complex.
Seems like the usual suspects have realized that there's a ton of money to be extracted by the veterinary industry and we're seeing the direct (hey, our CFO did some analysis and we can raise prices 500% and only impact sales 20%!) and indirect (hey, since there's a lot of money in this industry now, we've developed a new veterinary surgical instrument that improves outcomes 10% for only 20x the cost!) effects of that process.
And in this case, veterinarians are caught in the middle since they don't have a powerful cartel to protect them like human doctors; they end up with all of the stress and none of the profits.
"given the rise of pet insurance, private equity buying up clinics, and the increases in cost of veterinary care entirely out of line with inflation, my suspicion is that we're in fact in the early stages of the buildout of a vet industrial complex.
"
In the last few years have seen several times how things go when private equity buys a dental or vet practice (or even plumbing) . The workers there are suddenly under a quota to make money, have less time but more stress, costs to the customer go up. The only beneficiaries are the private equity company. Everybody else loses big time.
Seems like the usual suspects have realized that there's a ton of money to be extracted by the veterinary industry and we're seeing the direct (hey, our CFO did some analysis and we can raise prices 500% and only impact sales 20%!) and indirect (hey, since there's a lot of money in this industry now, we've developed a new veterinary surgical instrument that improves outcomes 10% for only 20x the cost!) effects of that process.
And in this case, veterinarians are caught in the middle since they don't have a powerful cartel to protect them like human doctors; they end up with all of the stress and none of the profits.