From Exam Room To Oval Office: The Cost of Putting Profit First (#298)

Have you noticed?

There are some striking similarities between corporate greed in veterinary medicine and the ethos that characterizes American politics today.

Prioritizing Profit Over People

• In politics: There is a clear pattern of deregulation and policymaking that favors large corporations and billionaires. Environmental protections are being rolled back. Tax cuts disproportionately benefit the wealthy. Financial success is equated with moral success. There is a kind of if you’re rich, you must be right mentality.

• In veterinary medicine: Corporate consolidation is shifting the profession from a service-first model to a profit-driven one. Independent vet clinics, once embedded in communities and guided by relationships and reputation, are being bought out by private equity firms and large chains. These corporate entities push metrics, upcharges, and often unnecessary procedures. Most often not for medical necessity, but for revenue targets.

Undermining the Independent Practitioner

• In politics: Experienced civil servants and career professionals in government agencies are being sidelined or removed if they challenge the political agenda or resist questionable actions. Loyalty to the boss has become more important than truth, science, or ethics.

• In veterinary medicine: Veterinarians in corporately owned clinics find themselves caught between their oath to do no harm and corporate mandates to push products or procedures. Those who resist the pressure to upsell may find themselves written up, passed over, or forced out, echoing the way principled dissent is treated as disloyalty in politics.

Independent Businesses vs. Mega-Corporations

• Independent businesses: Traditionally, independent vet practices offered a continuity of care. A long relationship between the vet, the pet, and the family. These businesses often operated on thin margins but were committed to their communities. Similarly, small and medium-sized enterprises in other sectors, including farms, shops, and trades, often balance profitability with integrity and social responsibility.

• The billionaire model: In today’s politics and corporate vet world, the emphasis is on consolidation. Bigger is better. The independent vet clinic is vanishing the way the local hardware store gave way to Home Depot, or the indie pharmacy was replaced by CVS. In both politics and business, billionaires are held up as aspirational figures, regardless of how they gained or wielded their wealth.

The Cost to Society

In both politics and vet med there is:

• A growing distrust among the public. Clients feel unsure whether they're being guided by care or by commissions.

• A departure of disillusioned young vets from the profession, unable to reconcile their values with the corporate model.

• A broader erosion of trust in institutions, whether it’s the government or your local vet when people sense that self-interest has trumped service.

Rick’s Commentary

At the heart of both corporate greed in veterinary medicine and the current governance model in the US is:

A shift away from service, care, and integrity, and toward optics, scale, and profit.

It’s not about whether business or government should be profitable or efficient. It’s about what is sacrificed in the name of efficiency and wealth.

If the soul of veterinary medicine is to be reclaimed, and in a broader sense the soul of leadership, we must start by asking:

Who is really benefiting from this shift?

And, who (or what) gets left behind?

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