<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>InSteady</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s an extremely easy thing to say from a place of privilege, and of course there is some truth to it. On the other hand, how many chronically broke and miserable people out there are only hanging on for love of a pet (perhaps the only consistent source of love and meaning in their adult or entire lives)? I&amp;#x27;ll bet its a lot. But fuck them, they&amp;#x27;re poor so I guess they should either tough it out alone or die.&lt;p&gt;Sorry to be so harsh about it, but your comment lacks basic empathy so I figured I&amp;#x27;d give you a little dose of same.</text><parent_chain><item><author>FrankoDelMar</author><text>Yeah, well if someone can&amp;#x27;t swing $200 they probably shouldn&amp;#x27;t own a pet.</text></item><item><author>pc86</author><text>The absolute amount of money is irrelevant, it matters what percentage of a person&amp;#x27;s disposable income it is.&lt;p&gt;$10k is nothing if you making half a million dollars a year and have $200k in credit with no balance, because your disposable income is probably $400-450k&amp;#x2F;yr.&lt;p&gt;$200 is a ruinous amount of money if you make minimum wage and take the bus to work because your disposable income is very likely negative.</text></item><item><author>Fomite</author><text>So one of the things that comes up a lot is that it&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; actually that correlated with cost.&lt;p&gt;Most vets I know (I also work for a state school, not a for profit company) are &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; sympathetic toward very large and expensive bills, and have always been up front about cost in a way that human medicine is not. There&amp;#x27;s also a myriad of ways they try to reduce bills when they can.&lt;p&gt;The toll is from folks who aren&amp;#x27;t spending much smaller amounts of money on life saving procedures.</text></item><item><author>wing-_-nuts</author><text>&amp;gt; hoping someone will pay for a procedure to save their pet&amp;#x27;s life while being braced for &amp;quot;I guess we should put them down...&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m sorry, but vet costs are &lt;i&gt;completely&lt;/i&gt; out of whack with reality these days.  The truth of the matter is that most people cannot justify spending thousands of dollars on a pet, no matter how much they are loved, and that &lt;i&gt;DOES NOT&lt;/i&gt; make them bad or unfit owners.  The story quoted $10k to remove a skewer a puppy swallowed, and then pressured the owner give the pup up when they couldn&amp;#x27;t afford that.  Can you not see how that would be viewed as &lt;i&gt;insanely&lt;/i&gt; predatory?  For profit companies should not be involved in human or animal medicine.  Once that cash cow is gone maybe vet school prices will come down to earth.</text></item><item><author>Fomite</author><text>I work in a veterinary school, and it&amp;#x27;s remarkable to see how worn down veterinarians are compared to my colleagues in &amp;quot;people medicine&amp;quot; (and my comparison group are infectious disease folks - they&amp;#x27;re not exactly a cheerful group).&lt;p&gt;To be honest, at this point, between how hard it is to get into vet school, the debt load, and how you&amp;#x27;re signing up for crushing compassion fatigue your whole life, and a career of hoping someone will pay for a procedure to save their pet&amp;#x27;s life while being braced for &amp;quot;I guess we should put them down...&amp;quot; every day, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t tell someone I cared for to become a vet.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>A suicide crisis among veterinarians</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20231010-the-acute-suicide-crisis-among-veterinarians-youre-always-going-to-be-failing-somebody</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>ruined</author><text>one&amp;#x27;s financial situation may change very rapidly, and humans have an innate need for companionship and comfort.</text><parent_chain><item><author>FrankoDelMar</author><text>Yeah, well if someone can&amp;#x27;t swing $200 they probably shouldn&amp;#x27;t own a pet.</text></item><item><author>pc86</author><text>The absolute amount of money is irrelevant, it matters what percentage of a person&amp;#x27;s disposable income it is.&lt;p&gt;$10k is nothing if you making half a million dollars a year and have $200k in credit with no balance, because your disposable income is probably $400-450k&amp;#x2F;yr.&lt;p&gt;$200 is a ruinous amount of money if you make minimum wage and take the bus to work because your disposable income is very likely negative.</text></item><item><author>Fomite</author><text>So one of the things that comes up a lot is that it&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; actually that correlated with cost.&lt;p&gt;Most vets I know (I also work for a state school, not a for profit company) are &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; sympathetic toward very large and expensive bills, and have always been up front about cost in a way that human medicine is not. There&amp;#x27;s also a myriad of ways they try to reduce bills when they can.&lt;p&gt;The toll is from folks who aren&amp;#x27;t spending much smaller amounts of money on life saving procedures.</text></item><item><author>wing-_-nuts</author><text>&amp;gt; hoping someone will pay for a procedure to save their pet&amp;#x27;s life while being braced for &amp;quot;I guess we should put them down...&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m sorry, but vet costs are &lt;i&gt;completely&lt;/i&gt; out of whack with reality these days.  The truth of the matter is that most people cannot justify spending thousands of dollars on a pet, no matter how much they are loved, and that &lt;i&gt;DOES NOT&lt;/i&gt; make them bad or unfit owners.  The story quoted $10k to remove a skewer a puppy swallowed, and then pressured the owner give the pup up when they couldn&amp;#x27;t afford that.  Can you not see how that would be viewed as &lt;i&gt;insanely&lt;/i&gt; predatory?  For profit companies should not be involved in human or animal medicine.  Once that cash cow is gone maybe vet school prices will come down to earth.</text></item><item><author>Fomite</author><text>I work in a veterinary school, and it&amp;#x27;s remarkable to see how worn down veterinarians are compared to my colleagues in &amp;quot;people medicine&amp;quot; (and my comparison group are infectious disease folks - they&amp;#x27;re not exactly a cheerful group).&lt;p&gt;To be honest, at this point, between how hard it is to get into vet school, the debt load, and how you&amp;#x27;re signing up for crushing compassion fatigue your whole life, and a career of hoping someone will pay for a procedure to save their pet&amp;#x27;s life while being braced for &amp;quot;I guess we should put them down...&amp;quot; every day, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t tell someone I cared for to become a vet.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>A suicide crisis among veterinarians</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20231010-the-acute-suicide-crisis-among-veterinarians-youre-always-going-to-be-failing-somebody</url></story>