Well, la-di-da. I think Cons need to have the difference between a compassionate anomaly and a functional economy explained to them. They don't seem to understand that we moved past a barter economy for a reason. Perhaps this handy calculation of how many chickens it would require to pay for our health care system will clarify matters. For those who want to click the link, the upshot is this: there ain't enough chickens in the world.It turns out that Senate candidate Sue Lowden (R-NV) is not the only politician out there who has promoted the idea of the barter system as part of health care. Yet another pro-barter Republican, state Rep. Mike Bell (R-TN), has been talking up the practices of Mennonites who pay doctors with vegetables.
Bell's made his comments last week, during discussion of a proposed state law that would attempt to nullify the federal health care insurance mandate in the state of Tennessee. Here is a transcript of a dialogue in committee between Bell and Democratic state Rep. Joe Towns, courtesy of the Nashville Scene, as Bell explained that many people get along without insurance:Bell: They're some of the healthiest people you have ever seen. They pay cash when they go to the doctor. They work out arrangements with the hospitals if their children have to be hospitalized. This is an individual choice that we're talking about.Towns: You're saying they pay cash? For organ transplants and cancer and heart cases, they pay cash?
Bell: I said they pay cash or work out other arrangements. I know for a fact. I know someone in the medical field who has been paid with vegetables from the Mennonite community.
The Nevada GOP seems to understand this is so much stupid bullshit. But instead of digging out, they're digging in:
Although the party is officially neutral in the primary between Lowden, former UNLV basketball player Danny Tarkanian and former state Rep. Sharron Angle, Nevada GOP communications director Ciara Turns nevertheless offered a vigorous defense of Lowden's statements, and condemned the Democrats for the way that Lowden is being attacked.
"Well it's pretty clear that they're attacking the way she conveyed her message because they can't attack her message," said Turns. "Her message is pretty clear. She was clearly trying to make the point that if we moved away from an insurance-based system and more people started paying cash for their health care, then prices would come down. But they don't want to address that. The left doesn't, Harry Reid's campaign doesn't want to address that, because it's a legitimate point that they can't argue. And so they've decided to go after the way she delivered her message instead of the substance of it."
Putting aside the fact that the actual substance of Sue Lowden's message was "bring a chicken to the doctor," let's just have a look at what the Cons are saying here. They believe we should get rid of insurance, and pay cash for health care. Turns, in fact, says that such a system has been "proven to work." It surely does - for very rich people. I did some digging on cancer treatment, and while Google failed to find me an average per person cost for cancer treatment, it seems the going rate is hundreds of thousands of dollars for breast cancer. Something tells me a little bit of barter-and-cash bargaining isn't going to bring those costs within range of a person trying to support a family on the microscopic salary offered to most peons in this country. And what about those who have lost their jobs? Those who have no chickens, veggies, or other means of exchange? Alan Grayson was right when he said, "If you get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: die quickly." That'll keep the costs down.
I have just one question for these outrageous idiots: when their children get sick, do they try to dicker the price down before that child is treated? When, in fact, was the last time they tried to trade farm produce for medical treatment? Have they given up their health insurance and started paying cash and cluckers? I'm willing to bet every dollar currently in my checking account that the answer is no.
So let me just advise them to shut the fuck up.
6 comments:
This is Data Point #MCMXLVII1I1!11 in the dataset demonstrating that Conservatism Is An Illness, Not An Ideology...
Also... innit funny how they're so against gambling when it's fun, but totally in favor of people gambling with their health (and lives)?
Because -- face it, conservalithics: absence of insurance means you're gambling that you can afford whatever may happen. That's the whole point of insurance: to spread risk, so nobody loses their shirt.
But what am I doing trying to argue rationally with them? *smacks self*
I wonder how many tomatoes it would take to pay for an MRI? Maybe three, four truckloads?
There's a point in what Republicans are saying. Unfortunately, it's obscured by the fact that they clearly don't understand how much it costs to get anything done in medicine these days. The days of paying for a procedure with poultry and vegetables are over, if only because the transportation costs alone would set a lot of people back.
Speaking of not understanding the economics, though, I'll just add for the benefit of Rep. Grayson that what he says about Republicans is now true of the Democrats, as well. The only difference is that now I also have to pay either an insurance company or the IRS for the privilege of dying quickly.
Grayson and all the other demagogues can screw themselves.
Hmm, lesse, a young laying hen (worth a lot more than just one you're going to eat, so we're being super generous) is about 10-15 dollars.
That's if your health care provider really *wants* a laying hen. I mean where are they going to put them all? By the end of the day you'd have to throw out any notion of sterile environment, everything would be covered in feathers and chickenshit.
So anyway, if your cancer treatment is in the 200-300K range (not hard to make it cost more if you end up spending more time in hospital than planned), then you'll have to bring twenty-thousand chickens.
Yeah, right.
And of course if you don't own a fucking chicken farm (and to be frank, really, how many people own 20,000 chickens) you're going to have to buy them.
How many of the urban poor own even ONE chicken? What are they supposed to do?
So yeah, only a complete idiot would fail to see the problems with this, so of course the Tea Party crowd will eat it right up.
Cujo: got a post somewhere explaining what's wrong with Grayson? Everything I've seen from him seemed very much like "wow, a politician actually saying stuff that makes sense for a change??"
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