Inflation is stubbornly persistent, and America’s 100 million pet owners are begging for a much-needed pause in pet care expenses. According to a Bank of America Institute report released in May 2025, the cost of pet services such as veterinary care was 42 percent higher in 2025 than in 2019.
Pundits and politicians from Tucker Carlson to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., claim that private equity is to blame for pet owners coughing up all the extra scratch. However, they are barking up the wrong tree. The causes of rising costs are complex and reveal the many flaws that plague America’s healthcare system. Pinning everything on a convenient scapegoat will do nothing to solve the problem.
Private equity has been baselessly blamed for everything from rising home prices to the disappearance of lobster restaurants. The logic linking private equity and rising vet prices is even more harebrained than the rest. According to senators Warren and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., private equity firms “have launched a large-scale effort to buy up small veterinary practices and consolidate them under the ownership of larger corporations. … Private equity firms have also raised the cost of veterinary services, exploiting consumers’ love for their pets to make a profit. Since 2014, prices for veterinary services have risen by 60 percent, with prices well over $300 per visit.”
While these firms are increasingly active in the veterinary market, there’s little evidence that private equity involvement is linked to higher prices.
In a 2025 paper in the peer-reviewed Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, North Dakota State University scholar Sandro Steinbach examined the effect of the “corporatization” of veterinary medicine on incumbent independent practices from 2000 to 2021. Independent practices are more likely to exit after large companies enter the fray, but they are only about 2 percent more likely to close shop.
The paper’s most interesting results come from studying the effect of corporate entry on the employment and revenue of surviving independent practices.
Steinbach concludes, “The treatment effects of corporate practice entry are even more pronounced for independent practice employment (−5.7 percent) and revenue (−6.9 percent). These differences imply that the marginal surviving independent practice has to be more efficient in smaller markets.”
In other words, mom-and-pop practices are getting nimbler and taking a (modest) hit to their income in response to their new competitors down the block. This could be happening for a few reasons, or a combination thereof. If private equity-owned practices are offering a better service to consumers at a reasonable price, then, perhaps, pet owners are switching vets and independent practices are taking in less money. Alternatively, independent practices may be holding their own (as the exit data suggests) and cutting prices and administrative costs to compete with private equity practices. What the evidence does not suggest, though, is that private equity firms are buying or running independent practices out of business en masse.
The truth is that there are a bunch of complicated reasons why pet care costs are surging. Survey respondents increasingly say their furry companions are part of the family, even more so than human family members. With this increased “humanization” comes demand for more specialized and comprehensive medical care.
As one veterinarian in charge of a large emergency and specialty hospital noted, “25 years ago, you’d be hard-pressed to find a veterinary oncologist, and now we can cure certain cancers. 25 years ago, your local vet would be on call, which often consisted mostly of euthanasia for an emergently ill animal. Now, there are hospitals like mine, where you can bring your gasping chihuahua in heart failure through the door at 3 a.m. and we can stabilize, treat and potentially buy you another year or two with your best friend.”
That change costs a LOT of money.
Plenty of other factors are putting upward pressure on prices, ranging from the preventable (tariffs and occupational licensing restrictions) to rising pet insurance uptake, blunting incentives to shop around for care. Some states are taking steps to remove costly regulatory barriers to care, but vet bills will likely continue to rise as pet owners seek out more comprehensive treatments for their fur babies.
Private equity opponents should acknowledge these complexities and quit littering podcasts and policy agendas with false claims.