Sue “Barter” Lowden
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The leading GOP candidate for the Nevada senate seat thinks that we should pay for health care with chickens.
If Harry Reid can’t beat her, he deserves to lose his seat.
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This is like Paul Ryan acting like you can doctor shop during a heart attack
If Harry Reid can’t beat her, he deserves to lose his seat.
I agree.
“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.”
Not in a million years did I think I’d be moved to want to contribute to Harry Reid.
I hope each of her contributors sends her a chicken, preferably live.
I don’t know Sue Barton from a sack of potatoes, but if that election comes down to stupid things said about health care, she’s got a long way to go to catch up to Harry Reid.
Oh, I don’t know. How do you think the Chicken Ranch got it’s name?
My Dad was billed $21,000 for one day in the hospital recently. So at 2-3$ a chicken, that is 7,000 chickens. And then begs the problem how are they split up? Does the hospital sell the chickens or pay their employees with chickens? Do they pay their vendors with chickens? How exactly do they deposit chickens in their employee’s 401k and pension plans?
Does he take chickens?
Sounds like you, like many right-wingers, are pretty much out of touch on this one. The fact that the GOP considers Ms. Lowden’s rhetoric normal and acceptable once again points to the serious intellectual crisis of GOPers. The problem is that people like this grow up and have careers around fellow Republicans and they’re never “caught” because other GOPers are too ignorant/scared to say, “no, Ms. Snowden/Dennis/Frank, that’s an idiotic thing to say.” Trying to set up a false equivalence with Harry Reid is just another example of how you can’t really even defend this sort of thing, but it’s what you’re stuck with: the GOP is full of people who simply can’t grapple with the realities of health care issues, because their culture rewards this sort of ignorance and callousness.
I keep saying about the GOP: there’s no political solution to a spiritual problem. The Snowdens, the George W Bushes, the Jays, the Dennises: these are broken people, seeped in destructive culture which had damaged them, as people.
Further proof that the GOP wants to go back to the Little House on the Prairie days (just as long as the robber barrons own everything and the workers are paid with dirt)
The Snowdens, the George W Bushes, the Jays, the Dennises: these are broken people, seeped in destructive culture which had damaged them, as people.
Well to make a judgement on anyone’s character I’d assume you know them.
Sounds like you, like many right-wingers, are pretty much out of touch on this one. The fact that the GOP considers Ms. Lowden’s rhetoric normal and acceptable once again points to the serious intellectual crisis of GOPers.
I think there is enough of an intellectual crisis to go around, that goes for both sides.
As far as bartering goes, as dumb as it may sound, it still happens. Now I know most yankees (not the baseball team) feel like they are intellectually superior to southerners.
I see bartering work down here all the time, and I feel it brings people of different backgrounds together.
Trading goods or services for health care is a stretch, but she does have a point, it has worked before.
I am eager to discover what my yearly bonus will be paid with, under our new barter system? Shall I get skunk pelts? Or perhaps a whole goat? Maybe my boss will wash our car for a year, if only for the amusement value.
Nice historical reference, but I think you may be misinformed about the Robber Barrons. Many of them were also philanthropists.
Andrew Carnegie once said “I propose to take an income no greater than $50,000 per annum! Beyond this I need ever earn, make no effort to increase my fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes! Let us cast aside business forever, except for others. Let us settle in Oxford and I shall get a thorough education, making the acquaintance of literary men. I figure that this will take three years active work. I shall pay especial attention to speaking in public. We can settle in London and I can purchase a controlling interest in some newspaper or live review and give the general management of it attention, taking part in public matters, especially those connected with education and improvement of the poorer classes.”
Modern examples of this could be Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, so I don’t know why anyone would frown upon profits. I don’t mind people making a profit, I wouldn’t have a job if it weren’t for them.
Hunting-gathering has “worked before”…
Stone tools have “worked before”…
Wearing skins has “worked before”…
Damn, man… ya’ll will defend ANYTHING from the mouth of a repub!
(check out that “ya’ll”…dat’s right… I’m a southerner…)
Well you could make a great hat with the pelts, a goat makes an excellent and I might add a “green” lawnmower(you could definitely lessen your environmental impact), goats do produce milk, and you can make cheese with milk, and you would’nt have to pay for a car wash for a whole year. Sounds like great savings to me.
hey Oliver! I went to the family doc to get my jock itch taken care of, but I’m short on cash until the 30th. What should I pay him with? My PS2 game collection or a Turkey I got in the fridge? Which do you think would be more acceptable for my insurance co-pay?
Well I said it was a stretch, but I would rather barter for my health care than be forced to buy it by my government. I just don’t discount it as being completely stupid, just a little far fetched.
The argument could be made that I am not being forced, and you would be right, I’ll just pay a fine if I don’t. Furthermore, I don’t understand the fascination with this health care bill, in my opinion it just puts more money in the pockets of insurance companies.
Secondly, the argument that Obama and the Democrats are not socialist, is debatable and should not be regarded as right-wing conspiracy. I would not have thought so if not for statements they have made regarding this issue. Such as it’s a starter home or the first step in reform.
They have made it abundantly clear that they want a single payer system, which is essentially government controlled healthcare. This would lead to rationing and if you don’t beleive me you should research N.I.C.E.
NICE has been the contributing factor to healthcare rationing in the U.K. Maybe that is not the system being put in place, but it is a starter home as Nancy Pelosi once said.
Andrew Carnegie was suffering from guilt over the business practices that made him rich while harming a lot of others along the way.
We can thank his personal guilt for all the public libraries (five in my county) he had built, even if libraries are socialist institutions in which a government collective buys books without regard for which ones will reinforce patriotism and which will promulgate treasonous progressive values.
I can’t wait to see her presidential run.
They have made it abundantly clear that they want a single payer system, which is essentially government controlled healthcare.
I’ll bet you hate those government controlled Interstate Highways, and fire departments and water systems too. I want that single payer system, because as a small business owner, I would like our country to be competitive (again) with those which supply such care.
I was an Army medic, and if everyone in this country received the standard of “government health care” I gave my fellow soldiers, I could not be happier. Do you have anything against Army medics or Navy corpsmen, or purchasing medical supplies by the trainload to get the best price?
Your modern Republican party: Almost beyond parody.
Wow. There truly ISN’T a comment that Republicans make that their sycophants won’t defend.
Oops, except one- “I agree with President Obama.”
If the surgeon who removed my cancerous thyroid gland would have taken a couple of roasters from Costco (organically raised, no less) in exchange for the five hour operation then I would certainly have gone that route.
I’m a lucky ducky. I have very good health insurance via my wife’s job with a major US corporation. Others are not so lucky in the US. On the other hand, many many others in other countries are far better off than we in the US. Our political system is broken and does not serve us anymore. The teabaggers are almost on the right track. The politicians need a good ass kicking, but the teabag politics are screwed up and don’t serve the interests of the American people.
This level of crazy isn’t that surprising. After all, many of these folks have a nostalgia for the gold standard, which really isn’t that far above barter, insofar as gold is merely a commodity. And they have a real nostalgia for the Gilded Age, when most of the country was still rural and separated by great distances, so a town or county may only have one doctor (a GP) relying on tools and technology not very far advanced from the time of Hippocrates himself.
EL, it’s you guys who are the sycophants.
You guys rarely read one word past Oliver’s typically dishonest headlines and never anything more than the link he provides.
TPM updated this non-story, at least, and apparently she used the word “barter” in place of “haggle.
Big whup.
———–
The Lowden campaign sent us a comment statement from the candidate. From the look of her explanation, it appears that she may have confused her vocabulary, using the word “barter” when she should have said “haggle,” judging from her discussion here about doctors accepting a lower payment if offered in cash. Key quote:
But don’t let me stop you from running around claiming she wants to run on a campaign where her central thesis is proposing a Senate bill allowing patients to trade chickens for MRIs and open heart surgeries.
This is what passes for sophisticated dialogue within the nutroots community these days.
You guys rarely read one word past Oliver’s typically dishonest headlines and never anything more than the link he provides.
TPM updated this non-story, at least, and apparently she used the word “barter” in place of “haggle”.
Oh boyoboy!
Who never reads past what now, Den’?
Do you think she wants to propose trading chickens for MRIs and open heart surgery, Quaker?
You really want to go with that and pretend this is something more than a snarky little, inconsequential post by Josh Marshall. This is what you think is intellectual poltical analysis on your part, that her double digit lead over Harry Reid is a result of all the people in Nevada who own or want to start raising chickens in the hopes of using them to pay for medical services or some physical catastrophe that might arise in their families?
You don’t feel the slightest twinge of embarrassment pretending that’s the case and following Oliver’s lead and then running with the pack here, do you?
Britain doesn’t have a single payer system. Try again.
Disingenuous Dennis again misses the point, probably on purpose. To propose barter and trading barnyard animals for medical services is an unserious, impractical “solution” for a real problem in this country.
Do you think she wants to propose trading chickens for MRIs and open heart surgery, Quaker?
All I know is what she said, Den’. What do you make of it?
You really want to go with that and pretend this is something more than a snarky little, inconsequential post by Josh Marshall.
You’re the one who invoked Josh Marshall, Den’. You’re also the one who was (ahem) clucking about how no one here reads beyond the immediate link. And now, all of a sudden, you’re dropping the “she really meant to say ‘haggle’” defense? Why is that?
This is what you think is intellectual poltical analysis on your part,
No, the exact opposite. This is making mock of your analysis.
Yes there is, it is called NHS, and it is the combination of four single payer systems which are all publicly funded. They are ran independently but report to the governments of the UK.
Got a cite for this?
I don’t necessarily have a problem with the military health care system, but to say it doesn’t have it’s problems would be misleading.
First there is the Walter Reed Army Medical Center that had some problems administering care during the Bush administration. Then there was the closing of several VA’s nationwide, including one in my hometown which is a great source of income for many in the community.
Yes I do have a problem with the government providing another entitlement on which they can’t fix the few they already run. Social Security and Medicare have been broken for years according to our own politicians from both sides of the aisle.
So I think you understand my concern in allowing the government to run anything.
I do enjoy the roads I drive on, some of them anyway, but these are not primarily funded by the federal government and they don’t run them. The state does here and does a halfway decent job. I think that is a product of having regional branches which control the construction and maintenance of certain roads.
Uh, wrong again. NHS is socialized healthcare, the facilities are owned and operated by the British government. In a single payer program, the facilities are privately operated and get reimbursed by the government.
Australia’s Medicare, Canada’s Medicare, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, and Taiwan’s National Health Insurance are examples of single-payer universal health care systems. Medicare in the United States is an example of a single-payer system for a specified, limited group of persons within a country….not from a real reliable source but Wikipedia is the best I could do right now.
I agree with President Obama on a few things. I like the pre-existing conditions clause in the health care bill, I am not sure how fair it is, but I like it. The student loan program was pretty much government ran already with all of the money in subsidies it was paying out to student loan companies, so not a bad idea either.
There are some other things as well as far as national security issues and the opening up of new oil leases along the coast. However, I could easily criticize those as well.
You’re going to have to get educated about this before you debate- NHS is not considered a single-payer model. If that was the case all universal care systems would be considered single payer, regardless of the delivery methods for care.
Thanks for the advice, I will try to make some time to read more. I’ve read that they are, but I’ll admit maybe I don’t know enough.
how many chickens for a leech, doctor?
win.
First there is the Walter Reed Army Medical Center that had some problems administering care during the Bush administration.
A court-martial for a bird colonel is all that is needed to solve problems like that. Another good reason to respect the military health care model. I can assure you it wasn’t the fault fo the corpsmen.
Then there was the closing of several VA’s nationwide, including one in my hometown which is a great source of income for many in the community.
And a source of health care for people like me, who gave a few years to our country and were promised that veterans who had taken risks and sacrificed civilian pay while doing so, had earned benefits over and above those of the grateful citizens who had never made a sacrifice of any kind for the country. Now many of these no-longer-grateful citizens who never served (*cough*teabaggers*cough*), object to paying the taxes required for the government to fulfill a promise made to those who served in their stead.
I believe the closures were Bush’s doing with a compliant GOP congress, more evidence that he didn’t give a sh!t about the troops.
Yeah, I think I’d prefer the money – it’s probably better than a hat made of skunk.
Though it occurs to me; if she does win this election – and I think I should make it clear that I would prefer this NOT be the case – then we should force her to barter for her congressional salary and benefits. I think she should ‘haggle’ over a $5 off coupon at Hot Topic, a free sandwich at the congressional auto-mat vending machine, and a free t-shirt.