Silly Sue Lowden and Nevada’s Chickens!
My apologies to Mother Hen but some stories need to be told. Read this one:
Perhaps inevitably, as you can see in the picture at the left, a progressive group has now created a special ChickenCare dance remix of senate candidate Sue Lowden’s proposal to bring down health care costs by adopting a barter economy in medical care.
A bit more seriously though, this does put the Nevada senate race into a certain clarifying perspective. The Health Care Reform bill wasn’t Harry Reid’s bill — ideas and strategy from lots of people went into it. And many people had endless criticisms of how he managed the process over the course of 2009 and 2010. At the end of the day, though, it passed. The Senate is where it happened. And Reid was central to the entire thing. That is an historic accomplishment. If his career in politics ends in January, his place in history will be secure.
So on the one side you have Harry Reid, a key architect of comprehensive Health Care Reform, the product of decades of activism, in all its messiness and policy complexity.
And on the other you have Sue Lowden, who thinks bartering livestock and other commodities for health care services from doctors is a way to rein in spiraling health care costs. (If you think that’s an exaggeration, take a minute and watch this video.) There’s no end of comedic possibilities thinking through the logistical and logical difficulties of managing co-pays and long-term care and drug costs in chickens and other barter payment. But step back and give it a serious look and … well, this is this woman’s take on confronting medical inflation. It’s funny and also sad. But as a contrast it’s stark and painful.
Seriously, think about it for a minute.
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Professor Mike
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“Hello Doc! Two hens and a chinchilla wasn’t it for my new prescription? There you go mate. Ta very much.”
Oh for chrissake don’t let our lot know about this. Brown would probably introduce a ‘Highland Cattle for the NHS’ bill or something equally daft!
No, they’d have to pay in live haggises.
(What’s with “Amy” above? Looks like she copied my comment word-for-word?)
Oh, this is hilarious. Of course, people without health insurance all have great herds of livestock which they should be using to pay for treatment instead. It makes so much sense.
Let’s see, when I had hip surgery a year and a half ago, the bill to the insurance company was $40,000. I wonder how many chickens that works out to? And what my surgeon would have done with that many chickens after he was paid?
It would take Monty Python to do justice to this.
Oh, this is hilarious. Of course, people without health insurance all have great herds of livestock which they should be using to pay for treatment instead. It makes so much sense.
Let’s see, when I had hip surgery a year and a half ago, the bill to the insurance company was $40,000. I wonder how many chickens that works out to? And what my surgeon would have done with that many chickens after he was paid?
It would take Monty Python to do justice to this.
How many chickens would it take? I personally do not have room to transfer $75 of fowl in my vehicle to the doctor.
Chickens aside, the barter economy can and does work occasionally within small, close communities among people with similar levels of skills and education. Babysitting co-ops, neighbor for neighbor- things like that.
Doctors aren’t in a position to discuss price (thus barter) with their patients as the business management part of the office is separate from the care providing department and rightfully so. Physicians treat all patients equally, without knowing their status or ability to pay.
Truly this woman has less sense than the adorable chicken in the video!
Some really obvious BS … ain’t it? Another flash in the pan.