A candidate for the the United States Senate from Nevada (she hopes to run against Harry Reid) had this to say about her plans for health care reform.
“Let’s change the system and talk about what the possibilities are. I’m telling you that this works. You know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor. They would say I’ll
paint your house. [That’s] what people would do to get health care with their doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people. I’m not backing down from that system.”
— Sue Lowden (R), the front-running challenger to Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), in an interview on Nevada Newsmakers suggesting that health care could be paid for using the barter system.
P.S. A good insurance plan will out-perform a good chicken every day of the week.
Al Power says
April 23, 2010 at 11:34 amShould Ms. Lowden ever need a triple bypass, I would love to see how many chickens her “sympathetic” surgeons accept (not to mention the folks who make Lipitor)…
Peg says
April 21, 2010 at 10:14 amHeh, heh. Reminds me of my late uncle David, a Vermont large-animal vet who had a walk-in commercial freezer and refrigerator installed in his house in the mid-1950s to store all those sides of beef, slabs of pork, chickens, turkeys, cheese, butter, fruits and vegetables farmers often paid for his services. With four kids and hordes of visiting relatives, the food came in handy. (Fortunately, my aunt Lucy grew up on a farm and already had the required butchering and food-preservation skills.)
I do know folks who, as late as the 1970s, bartered dental crowns for handmade silver jewelry and others who received home-birth and well-baby care in exchange for organic vegetables–a model that doesn’t scale, generalize, or work well in an era of managed care. But, hey! Might still work for a few.