[IG_Semmelweiss]

The only answer to this issue (and make no mistake, its happening in medical care for humans too) is to not restrict conpetition.

With yields so low, and the stock market still above 2019 highs, PE firms are diving into the few areas of the economy where there is value due to lack of competition and it is also not completely overheated.

However, take out the permit and licensing requirements and you would plummet PE money pouring in right away.

[PragmaticPulp]

> However, take out the permit and licensing requirements

Remove permitting, licensing, and educational requirements from people selling surgical procedures for animals?

No thanks. I don't actually see occupational licensing as a bottleneck for a job that requires significant education and training to do properly anyway

We don't have a backlog of veterinarians out there who completed all of their years of training but then got stuck getting licensing.

We also don't really want amateurs vets opening up clinics and just winging it with people's pets.

[idrios]

> We also don't really want amateurs vets opening up clinics and just winging it with people's pets.

In a couple decades, people will be saying this about to fresh veterinary school graduates who want to open their own hospital instead of joining one of the conglomerate private equity firms.

We don't have a backlog of trained unlicensed veterinarians because it's the training that's the bottleneck. You could be the most ambitious person in the world but if you don't get into vet school then that door is closed. You can't get a license if you don't go to an accredited institution.

I wouldn't get rid of the license requirement, but I would definitely change it to something that is not rate-limited by the number of available vet school seats per year. Imagine if drivers licenses were handed out the same way, if each DMV only offered the mandatory prerequisite training to 500 people per year and nobody else was allowed to drive. Driving would become an elite institution too, and we'd be complaining that it's better that way because nobody trusts amateur drivers operating these several-thousand lb machines.

[AlotOfReading]

Currently about 3,200 vets graduate each year. About 4,400 veterinary positions open up annually according to the BLS [1].

[1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/veterinarians.htm#tab-6

[dennisgorelik]

If some consumers want to demand certification from their veterinarian - they are free to demand veterinarian certification [with their own dollars].

But why should all consumers be forced to overpay for licensed veterinarians?

[the_d3f4ult]

This is like saying taking out the "permit and licensing requirement" for pilots would lower the cost of airline tickets. It's just...more complicated than that. The cost of paying physicians is a drop in the healthcare bucket. The inefficiencies and anti-competitive practices appear at an institutional level.

Now, make the kind of regulatory changes that would allow small healthcare businesses to compete successfully and create a freer market and you might get traction.

[x86_64Ubuntu]

>...However, take out the permit and licensing requirements and you would plummet PE money pouring in right away.

And you will have a trail of dead pets resembling a slaughterhouse along the way.