This (“A simple healthcare plan anyone with a few thousand live chickens can use!”) is hilarious…
Senate hopeful Sue Lowden’s plan for Healthcare reform is to barter chickens for medical procedures. But you may be unsure how many chickens are required for your medical care. This handy calculator converts many common procedures into chickens so you won’t look like an idiot at your next Doctor’s Appointment.
After you’ve calculated the number of chickens you’ll need for your next medical procedure (5 for a flu shot; 1,533 to repair an aneurysm), “secured your future” with an egg-based medical savings account, or looked into catastrophic illness insurance (“get some cows”), be sure to read the fine print below the scroll-down:
… For your convenience, we recommend bringing at least 20% more chickens than specified to any doctor’s appointment. For that matter, you should have at least 1500 chickens per passenger in your car in the event of an accident, so you could just use those if you’re a little short on chickens, but then be extra careful driving home from the doctor because you will have used up some of your accident chickens… Chickens should be secured in your trunk or truckbed if possible. Any chickens riding in the passenger compartment on the way to the doctor must wear seat belts. Chickens should not drive you to the doctor, if you are unable to drive you should dial 911 for an ambulance. Ambulances may not accept chickens for payment, you should have at least 4 goats or an adult pig…
Now if John Cole had the mad bizness skillz of an Erick Erickson, he could make a little extra sumpin-sumpin by directing all us minions to purchase rubber chickens through the Balloon Juice Amazon link and mail them to Sue Lowden as “campaign contributions”…
(And, yes, there are approximately 50 listings for rubber chickens on Amazon… and some of them are quite tempting.)
The Grand Panjandrum
The internet is a deadly beautiful place to mock those who do and say stupid things.
Hell yeah! But ONLY if someone designs a really cool Balloon Juice patch that we can purchase to have sewn on our flak jackets. Why should the righties get all the cool bling.
asiangrrlMN
I love that site. I am having a blast with this whole chickens for healthcare shtick. And, of course, the original chicken lady at a strip club.
MMonides
Obviously a lot of this could be avoided if people would just accept that Ostrich meat is an excellent low-fat alternative.
Cat Lady
Coming up on the next Dirty Jobs – Accounts Receivable.
SGEW
Remember: the Republican base feeds off of liberal ridicule. The more we make fun of them, the more enthusiastic they are.
Not to say that they shouldn’t be made fun of (it would be very hard not to); just saying.
David
I have the feeling Sue doesn’t realize that you’re supposed to pay taxes on profits made from bartered goods.
Madeline
The best idea I heard was making a Heifer.org donation for a flock of chicks to or in the name of the Lowden campaign. I think I read this on TPM – apparently, she’d have to count it as a campaign contribution. Anybody know if that’s true, because I’d sure love to do that.
dmsilev
@Madeline: That’d be wonderful. I know that the Nevada Democratic Party tried to donate a goat to Lowden (there’s a video floating around somewhere on YouTube), but they were turned down.
dms
WereBear
@SGEW: While that may be true, it is more than human spirit can stand, not making fun of them when they beg for it so piteously.
I’m not made of stone!
LuciaMia
What about two comely lasses of virtue true?
frankdawg
Anne – what is wrong with me? I actually LOVE the idea of sending that schmuck a rubber chicken!
This thing needs to gain traction!
Violet
I’d be all for sending live chickens to Lowden as a campaign donation, but I’m not in support of animal cruelty.
dmsilev
@LuciaMia:
The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Comely Lasses (SPCCL) would like to have a few words with you.
dms
Svensker
@Madeline:
Love the idea of donating to Heifer in honor of Lowden, but there’s no way the campaign would have to count it as a contribution. Can you imagine the accounting nightmare of keeping track of donations made to an unconnected third party by people you have no control over? Even the IRS isn’t that insane.
lisaintexas
So, what happens when the doctor has more than enough chickens? And by the look of this plan one or two patients and he/she’ll be chickened out :)
PurpleGirl
@Svensker: Heifer would probably send an acknowledgment to her of the contribution(s) made in her name/honor. I don’t know if it would be something she gets to count as a contribution to her but she’d know what was sent to Heifer. These honorary contributions can be made with your own name sent to the honoree (Lowden) or you can ask to have it kept anonymous.
ETA: It’s possible that a contribution in her honor to Heifer would piss her off… you know a bunch of liberals giving to a liberal charity in her name to do something she might not support herself.
Michael
@Cat Lady:
FTW
WereBear
I wonder what the wingnut doctors think of their political party agitating to have their patients treat their services with the respect of someone haggling over a lawn sale puzzle which may or may not have pieces missing.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
I think this system starts to fail when eggstraordinary medical measures are needed.
You may think that’s a yolk, but I have to scramble to make ends meet as it is. Meanwhile, my doctor says his business is albumin since the rate card went all poultry.
Svensker
@PurpleGirl:
That is all true. I just don’t think the IRS would come after her for the Heifer contributions.
If they did, maybe Balloon Juice could do an Ark (a $5K Heifer package)? :)
PurpleGirl
@Svensker: Yeah, she wouldn’t be on the hook for those contributions to Heifer. But I think it would make Lowden mad.
She really shouldn’t have said anything if she couldn’t put bartering into a better context. I think her mistake was the “back in the old days, your grandparents gave a chicken….” stuff because the IRS does look at bartering clubs and expects bartering to be kept track of for tax purposes. Even her later comments make her look ignorant of the actual situation. And the rural doctor who she referenced turned out to be a GOP wanna be candidate herself in other races at other times.
Bring Em Young
At least were not like Socialist Europeans. At least we got that. Drill Baby Drill
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/01/oslos-buses-to/
Upper West
O/T, but are you the Annie Laurie in this Times article about atheists?
Bad Horse's Filly
Your last two posts have been wonderful Anne! Loved waking up to them. Rubber chickens for everyone!
Little Dreamer
@Madeline:
So she’d have to count the chickens, would she have to do it before they hatched or wait until after?
(sorry if I am repeating this stupid joke I thought up, I haven’t read the thread yet).
dadanarchist
The DSCC has one too. Not as good but still more hilarity:
Chickens for Checkups? Just Ask Sue
maya
You know you could brew up a double caldron of ye olde tyme curative, chicken soup, and bypass doctor visits altogether. Surprised Sue didn’t think of that.
Little Dreamer
@PurpleGirl:
My grandfather was a chemical engineer, does this mean he did his bartering with medicinal substances (I mean with this line of reasoning, I’m beginning to wonder could he have been a drug pusher?) Hmmmmm!
What X It?
What do you get when you cross a random quote generator with a fembot? Miss New Jersey
Little Dreamer
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
I’m bacon you to stop!
Little Dreamer
@lisaintexas:
They become lobbyists for the white meat industry?
Chicken Hawk$
@Little Dreamer:
All you need is SNARK! The little rich kids have their frat boy humor. Please understand. Our parents had to work for a living and our fathers usually didn’t have a “Third” after their name. Rush Hudson Limbaugh III disappointed his parents. His lawyer father had bigger things in mind for him. Most little rich girls (I hope) remembers the day they lose their virginity. I wonder though how many of them spend any time wondering where they lost their empathy. Assuming they had any to begin with. I was born with a card that promised me exemption from pain and suffering. My mother lost it and everything that has happened ever since has been her fault. If you can’t share your toys it doesn’t matter how many you have – it’s not as much fun playing with yourself. Ummm – that line needs work. GOT BATTERIES?
Chicken Hawk$
@The Grand Panjandrum:
I wonder – did you take your moniker from “Captains and Kings” by Taylor Caldwell? I remember watching that miniseries and the scene where Joseph Armagh brings his son to meet “The Silent but Deadly Men” just made me realize the real way things work in the world. In later years I would try to tell people about “Gnomes of Zurich” who are these days Gnomes of Beijing and they often thought I was wearing a tin foil cap. Hey – you’re the ones walking around with the “Take Our Country Back” signs. Don’t you get it. We the people is now “We the sheeple” In Gold we trust. Were you out on the day we learned life is not fair? The money bought the lobbyists who bought the politicos. Simple enough concept for you? That Kenyan Muslin is really about as Socialst as Jenna Bush and YOU are acting like a five year old child which is just the way you roll. Around on the floor between the aisles throwing tantrums.
IndyLib
@PurpleGirl:
Reminds me of the donation I made to Planned Parenthood in Bible Spice’s name during the general.
Little Dreamer
@Chicken Hawk$:
You sound like you had a lot of the same experiences I did, although my father didn’t have a III after his name, he was new money.
I remember both where I lost my virginity and why I haven’t lost my empathy. Unlike the rest of my wealthy family (siblings only now, parents gone), I became nothing like they wanted me to be, I’m the one who doesn’t drive a BMW, own a mansion in an exclusive neighborhood or vote Republican.
;)
Carry on!
Martin
Well, to take a big step back from mocking this (which I think is necessary – mockery can backfire when taken too far), is the GOP (since we’ve seen more than one idea like this) seems to be either
1) completely unaware of the disparity of income that has developed or
2) aware of it, but terrified to deal with it head-on.
Barter works fine when everyone’s services are of equal value (e.g. in a proper communist system). The 1000 chickens per year that I could raise would balance out nicely with the 1000 medical procedures that the doctor would perform, and sure, you could probably make such a system work out at least in some cases.
Why my daughter was born we racked up an estimated $300K in medical costs in 16 days. At the time, even my house wasn’t worth that. It was around 8x my annual income. Simply put, without the awesome insurance we had at the time (we never actually saw a bill, the estimate came from the head of the HMO unit when I asked who I’m pretty sure was ballparking it because he never saw the costs either) there was no fucking way I could have paid that bill out of pocket. Even if I had turned over all of my worldly possessions, I could not have paid the bill. Even if I had offered to be an indentured servant, I could not have paid the bill and still supported my family (assuming I was ‘worth’ $40K in services per year).
The problem with the system the GOP seems completely unwilling to even admit to is that my doctors’s value to society is priced so much higher than mine (at least it was at the time, I’ve closed that gap some), that I have little more to offer than an 9 year old would have to offer me. Sure, I could ask them to weed my lawn for the year, but there is almost nothing that a 9 year old could do of value to balance out a single day’s work for my employer. That disparity leaves low-wage workers with no ability to negotiate, because essentially we have nothing to offer. Even if you strip out the insurance companies and the drug companies and then compare service employees – a teacher or a firefighter or a police officer to a doctor or other high-income worker – there’s no room to negotiate because there’s so little for us to offer.
This chicken shit is just a more desperate move to avoid that truth.
Madeline
@PurpleGirl: That’s exactly what I had in mind.
@Svensker: I thought it sounded too good to be true. Awfully fun to think about though.
Anne Laurie
@Upper West: Nope — only one ‘i’ in my name, which is what makes it special & unique.
Ruckus
@Martin:
And of course this is one of the main reasons that barter hasn’t been more than a curious blip in the exchange of goods and services in a very long time.
Funny thing is, I have, in the last year, bartered with my dentist. He wanted services that I offer and I owed him money. We traded. My labor for his bill. Not exactly a chicken exchange but not currency either.
Just talking with a customer who is a bartender. His comment as we stood outside my shop and watched a new 7 series BMW and a 5-8 year old Volvo station wagon drive by, “There is no middle class left”, was spot on. He said that someone used to work reasonably hard, have a house, a car, a couple of kids. You know, an acceptable life. But not for most people any more.
We are reduced to the really haves, the barely survives, and the nothings.
Triassic Sands
Shortly after hearing of the Lowden Plan, I remarked to a friend that it wouldn’t be long before someone produced a website like this. Another good idea takes wing.
It is a sign of the incompetence of our own legislators that they didn’t include such a plan in their HCR bill.
Question: is there any chance I can trade a cat or two for an office visit?
I fully expect Lowden to receive one of the next four or five Nobel Prizes in Medicine. And a Peace Prize seems like a good bet too.
Seonachan
Blue Cross Blue Chicken
chickenhawksue
Right “Wing” Chicken Party