Sue Lowden, a Republican challenging for Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) Senate seat, boosted herself to the top of late-night monologues Monday by suggesting that instead of purchasing health insurance, patients should control their health care costs by offering to pay their doctors' bills in chickens.
Lowden not only is serious, but she's upped the ante, now urging employers to skip buying health insurance for their employees in favor of the barter system:
"I'm telling you that this works. As an employer, having your employees barter a chicken beats paying for health care. I'm serious about this. Doctors like chickens."
Of course, in our grandparents' time, medical care was much less technological, and therefore much less expensive, than it is now. (My father, a retired general practitioner, can still tell as much from palpating a patient's abdomen or listening carefully for crepitus while articulating a patient's sore knee than most modern internists can from reading an MRI or CT scan.) So I decided to figure out how much some typical modern medical procedures cost -- in live chickens.
As my base unit of currency, I chose a live, day-old baby Cornish X Rock chick (good meat chickens, 4-5 lbs. in just 6-8 weeks) from the Murray McMurray chicken hatchery in Webster City, Iowa, which cost $1.92 each. (Of course, there's also a cost to housing and feeding the chickens to maturity, but I'm willing to write those expenses off as entertainment. It's worth paying something just for the fun of freaking out the HOA president by having chickens running around the cul-de-sac.)
Here's what some procedures cost, in Cornish X Rock chickens and, for a sense of scale, in the number of semi tractor-trailer "big rig" trucks it would take to haul those chickens (at 6,000 chickens per truck):
Laparoscopic appendectomy: $22,718.70, or 11,833 chickens (two trucks).
Silicone gel breast implants, surgeon's fee (not including implants themselves, hospitalization, etc.), according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery: $3,813, or 1,986 chickens (one-third of one truck).
Surgically repairing the leg Arnold Schwarzenegger broke skiing in 2007: $55,000 (28,646 chickens, or nearly five trucks).
Average MRI in San Diego, California: $2,826 (1,472 chickens, or about 1/4 of a semi truck). (Cost to operate an MRI machine for one year: $800,000 (416,667 chickens, or about 69 trucks).)
One thing Lowden may not have considered is a new study showing that bacteria in feathers and debris blowing off chicken haulers can cause illness in humans. This suggests that switching to a chicken-based medical economy, which of course seems at first like a stellar idea, could accidentally drive up the demand for healthcare, increasing medical costs instead of reducing them.
Of course, if you don't want to spend $100,000 (52,000 chickens/nine trucks) or more on your bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction, you could always join the thousands of Americans now obtaining health care through medical tourism to third world countries, where the cost of care is much lower -- and where some of the physicians, unlike most modern American doctors, are still willing to accept payment in chickens.
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Although the health care bill sparked long, heated debate over the role of government, new research shows that, when it comes to reducing waste in our system, the most important reforms begin at home.
Jokes aside, Medical Tourism does offer a choice to some one who cannot afford the medical procedure(elective or necessary) in developed countries.
www.TourNCare.com
Online Medical Tourist Community
Regardless of how you feel about Harry Reid, I can see a genuine outpouring of support to stop this clucker from being elected at all costs. I think a ham sandwich could run against this woman and win, just on the basis of these two interviews.
Clueless, privileged wingnuttery that defies imagination.
I personally didn't have much cash on hand, and especially any chickens, just a couple dogs and a turtle. So, I had to get even more creative.
Thanks to our flawed system that leaves Americans high and dry, I opted to have my total knee replacement surgery in Mexico through a medical tourism company called Medtogo (I told them I'd recommend them, so if anyone wants to contact them, their website is www.medtogo.com). The orthopedic surgical team and hospital were better than anything I've ever experienced in the US. I ended up spending only $13,000 for the entire procedure, saving about $40,000 - now how much is that in chickens?
I'm only writing to let my fellow Americans know that they don't have to stand for these prices. You don't need to "give away the farm", so to speak, there are options. I'm all for buying American and putting America first, but not when insurance companies, HMOs, malpractice lawyers, big pharma, doctors and hospitals in the US put themselves and their pocketbooks first. In a capitalist society we are told to vote with our dollars. I don't remember what they say about chickens.
It is astounding, isn't it, how people who've never left the country remain morally convinced that America has "the best health care system in the world"?
Grade School Teacher, News Reader, One Term State Senator, Executive for Nevada Gaming and State Chair. WELL THAT MAKES SENSE THE GOP IS CERTAINLY GAMBLING WITH OUR FUTURES.
Her positions:
Economy
* 2001 federal tax cuts permanent. THEY DOUBLED THE DEFICIT.
* Eliminate Estate Tax. CAUSE THE RICH ARE NOT RICH ENOUGH.
* Eliminate capital gains tax. CAUSE THE RICH STILL ARE NOT RICH ENOUGH.
* Cut spending. HOW? NOT A HINT.
* Balance the Federal Budget. AFTER ALL OF THOSE TAX CUTS?
Health care
* Implement tort reform WILL SAVE ONE TO TWO PERCENT.
* Allow employers to purchase plans in other states STANDARDS/OVERSIGHT?
* Allow patients to barter with their doctors in order to purchase care CHICKENS FOR PILLS!
* Allow small businesses to better pool their resources when purchasing health insurance IN THE HEALTH CARE BILL IN THE FORM OF EXCHANGES.
* Create better options for Nevadans to purchase health care outside their businesses WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? THE PUBLIC OPTION?
Social issues
* Strict interpretation of U.S. Constitution I DOUBT SHE HAS THE FOGGIEST IDEA WHAT THIS MEANS.
* Traditional marriage and opposition to same sex marriage YES. BECAUSE GAYS, IMMIGRANTS, BLACK PEOPLE, AND THE REST OF THOSE DAMNED BY GOD SHOULD NOT BE ACCORDED HUMAN RIGHTS. THAT WOULD BE WRONG.
* Support right to bear arms I AM THINKING OF BAZOOKAS AND STINGER MISSLES.
Foreign affairs
* Supports Israel CAUSE THAT'S THE ONLY OTHER COUNTRY IN