'It worked!' GOP Senate candidate floats return to barter system to pay for health care

[turbinetree]

Brad Reed December 4, 2023 11:48 AM ET

A top Republican candidate for the United States Senate in Montana floated eliminating all health insurance and bringing back the old-timey payment system where cash-strapped patients could barter with their doctors for medical care .

Semafor reports that Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy argued in a meet-and-greet with voters in August that "we need to return healthcare to pure privatization," despite the fact that the United States government has been providing financial assistance to help Americans get medical care for decades.

When asked about what this would entail, Sheehy pointed to the kinds of payment systems that were more common in the 19th century.

https://www.rawstory.com/tim-sheehy-montana-senate/

-snip-

"Tim knows we must keep our commitment to every Montana senior to protect their Social Security and Medicare benefits," the campaign said. "He believes our nation made a promise to our seniors and we must keep that promise. Full stop.”

Next up he has a fucking bridge he wants to sell to you...........what a jerk......

[Traildogbob]

1. How much

Would we tax payers save if that health care entitlement for Congress, senate and President, were on that plan. They get paid enough for some serious bartering.

[tanyev]

2. So how many leeches and bottles of tonic can I get for two chickens?

[ret5hd]

3. will we convert the doctors student loan debt...

to some number of chickens, eggs, and acorn squash?

[50 Shades Of Blue]

4. What a fucking asshole!

[Mad_Machine76]

5. How the heck would that even work?

How exactly does he think that that will actually work?!

[yardwork]

16. I saw how it worked.

Patients would leave bags of cabbages, or bottles of moonshine, on the front porch of the doctor's office in rural communities instead of paying their bills.

This did not help the doctors pay their staff, buy medical supplies, or help pay for their kids' college tuition. Doctor's offices are businesses like everything else and cabbages don't pay the rent.

In other words, it didn't work. The doctors didn't like it.

[redqueen]

6. We really, really need to address the outsize influence of rural voters

This is some grade a horseshit

[yardwork]

17. That's true. The balance of power is seriously out of whack.

[intheflow]

7. I need brain surgery.

Here's a gallon of milk and some cookies I made. I know everyone from the surgeon to my insurance carrier will be overjoyed by providing me top notch medical care for what they could buy at the grocery store for $10.

Disclosure: I don't need brain surgery. I was just being dramatic to underscore the lunacy of this "proposal."

[irisblue]

8. Sue Lowden, Nv GOP, in 2010 & barter for healthcare. They rarely change

Source-https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2028959_2028935_2028923,00.html


snip-",Sue Lowden, once the front runner in Nevada's GOP Senate primary, made herself a notable exception in an April 19 interview with a local TV station. In defending a previous statement she had made suggesting that patients barter with their health care providers, Lowden noted that "in the olden days ... they would bring a chicken to the doctor" to pay for treatment. Democrats pounced on the comment, ceaselessly mocking the candidate and coining one of the more memorable taunts of the campaign season: "Chickens for checkups." Lowden ended up losing the primary to Tea Partyer Sharron Angle, who has had no shortage of foul-ups herself.

[lastlib]

23. "..no shortage of fowl-ups"?

I was thinking of those two myself. (GMTA!)

[calimary]

9. This takes me back to some woman who spoke glowingly about the "good old days"

When people would “bring a chicken to the doctor” as payment for whatever treatment the doctor gave them.

This was years ago. I think she was running for something. Sheesh - who was she?

[lastlib]

24. (See post #8 above)

Sue Lowden and Sharron Angle were the dunces in question there. Candidates for US Senate.

[calimary]

36. Yep. Thanks!

[bucolic_frolic]

10. Like every other commodity, prices are all over the map

Fees are not based on time and materials very much. There's an insurance price, a CMS/Medicare price, Advantage prices, an out-of-network price, an uninsured price, a cash price.

I once got an MRI. I think they said it was about $1200, but, uninsured at the time, it was $500 if you did it next Tuesday when they had idle time and you paid CASH! I did.

But this lunatic Senator's idea is bogus. Patients have no negotiating power. If that existed it would be based on competition. Often there is none, or there is collusion. It's not like calling up to price a gallon of milk.

[dalton99a]

11. POS lives off government contracts to his company

[progressoid]

12. I've got a stack of used egg cartons. Will that pay for my appendectomy?

[DBoon]

44. no, but selling your first born into indentured servitude might

No children? Maybe donate your "spare" kidney

We are in serious Jonathan Swift territory here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

[Captain Zero]

13. How many chickens to set a broken leg?

Sounds like a Republican replacement plan.

I think it will make Republicans easier to replace.

[Grokenstein]

14. Haven't we been through this before? Why, yes, we have:

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

61. Good grief

If someone doesn't have enough money to pay a doctor for care, what makes this gormless git think that they can paint a house? Who will provide the paint and the supplies? Has this daft traitor trash seen how much paint alone *costs* these days? This is the lowest I could find at Sherwin-Williams:

https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/products/a100-exterior-acrylic-latex

$56.49 for one gallon--on sale, and you'd need around 10 cans for a 1500 sf home. I was being nice about the size, you know. How many of us know an MD living in a house that small?

Anyway, if the patient can't afford to pay a doctor, what makes this idiot think they they can afford to paint a house?

And these traitor thugs think they're the 'smart' ones because they know all about bidness? Meanwhile, I'm an admitted idiot about bidness, and even I know that nobody can paint a house for free.

[Demnh2fl]

15. Time for garage sale care

Just find items you are not using and present them as payment for your hospital bill or surgeon’s fee. This could be a good solution to all funding problem for. Medicare. It could be expanded also to be used for student debt. I am sure the big banks would accept old bikes and backpacks as tender.

[Ocelot II]

27. I have a table saw I'm not using.

Maybe the clinic would take it in exchange for a look at my sore knee.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

62. Sheesh

I have an antique Heywood Wakefield bed set in my garage that I'm not using anymore. Maybe I can trade that for a few year's worth of insulin!

[tanyev]

47. Brilliant! I've got a couch I want to get rid of.

I bet my eye doctor would give me a new pair of glasses for it.

[LiberalFighter]

18. How many of them actually lived during that time period?

[Haggard Celine]

22. Good question.

My grandparents used to talk about that kind of thing, but they've all been dead for years. My parents are Boomers and they don't remember anything like that. There might still be people out there who remember that sort of thing, but they're very old!

[multigraincracker]

38. I'm old enough to remember house calls.

Can’t remember if dad wrote a check, we didn’t have any chickens.

[Haggard Celine]

39. When I was going through my surgeries and all,

they sent nurses here to the house to check my vitals and dress wounds. I don't know if doctors do them today. It's probably got a lot to do with how much money you give them, and a chicken ain't gonna do it!

[slightlv]

52. Your comment echoes the first thing I thought of!

I'm a boomer, and I remember when the doc came to the house to diagnoses me with measles. He didn't take anything but $$$ in trade, tho!

[Beartracks]

19. "Make America 1800s again!" Apparently, modernity is too "liberal" for Republicans. n/t

[Permanut]

20. The CEO of United Health Group, Andrew Witty..

Last edited Mon Dec 4, 2023, 06:23 PM - Edit history (1)

made about $21 million in 2022

If we pay him in chickens for our health care coverage, that's 105 million chickens, if you get the special $5 roasted chickens at Costco.

[barbtries]

21. i don't see that

winning him a lot of votes.

i know the cost of living is less in MT, but that much less?

[lastlib]

25. He'll get the moron vote in a landslide..... n/t

[Ocelot II]

26. I don't think my clinic accepts sheep.

Not that I have any sheep.

[The Unmitigated Gall]

28. Not really what else

A political party could possibly do to demonstrate more thoroughly bereft it is of ideas as well as capacity to govern.
But people here are smart…

[CanonRay]

29. I called my pulmonologist...he said two goats would be fine next time.

[doc03]

30. I had hernia surgery back in October, so far it cost $46000 and I haven't

received bills from all of the providers yet. What do I do give them my car, my truck and my furniture?

[rurallib]

33. two chickens and a gallon of milk

[doc03]

37. That may have worked in Dodge with Dr. Adams. nt

[Nictuku]

34. I was in the ER for 7 hours for kidney stone $25,500

There was no surgery. Only CT scan, pain meds, and some other kind of relaxant to help me pass the stone. I'm too old to offer up my body these days.... would I have to sign over my house? I'm still paying it off!

[Docreed2003]

45. As a surgeon myself who performs hernia surgeries

Surely you'd be willing to provide a grass cutting service or car washing or something equally mundane to pay off your bill...

[doc03]

50. My surgeon also has a farm, I offered to shovel out his barn. nt

[Anarcho-Socialist]

31. Doctor, what will you give me for a...

…turnip and an old-timey Penny Farthing-style bicycle?

[Yavin4]

32. Theodoric of York Medieval Barber

[RKP5637]

35. Clearly limited intelligence and a good dose of stupidity! n/t

[Rebl2]

40. He Should be

laughed out of the state. Now how do doctors pay for medical equipment and medicine with the eggs and milk the patient brought them as payment. Pretty sure nobody wants this.

[Chainfire]

41. Someone that stupid shouldn't qualify for the job of villiage idiot.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

63. Even village idiots have standards, you know

[Hekate]

42. This idea again? Like, how many homegrown chicken eggs does it take for my appendectomy?

Can I fix your car for my child’s cancer treatment?

Are all GOP politicians blithering idiots? Or do they just hold the opinion that sll the rest of us are?

[struggle4progress]

43. "Remember the glory days of 19th century medicine!" should lure doctors to Montana

by the wagon load!

"Our town ain't got too much cash but you gonna be eatin all the chicken you can pluck! And we gonna build us saloons and brothels soon!"

[Docreed2003]

46. So how would I, as a provider, arrange a "fair market barter value" for services

How much for a gallbladder? Or hernia? Or Colon cancer surgery?

What this imbecile fails to acknowledge is that the world has advanced in orders of magnitude since medicine operated on a "barter system". This isn't "Little House on the Prairie" and I'm not Dr Baker. The reality is there are hundreds and hundreds of factors that result in a medical bill. To suggest that those services should be paid for through a bartering system is not just laughable, it's appallingly stupid. This statement, despite its folksy tone, betrays his main motive which is to undercut healthcare and services to the poorest in our country.

[EarthFirst]

48. More "good ole days" dog whistlin'

They know whom they speak of; and to whom this resonates.

Get fu*ked.

[NickB79]

49. Good thing I keep a flock of chickens for medical emergencies

I'll give you 5 hens for a pair of eyeglasses. I need progressive lenses? Ok fine, 6 hens and a basket of apples, but no more!

[doc03]

51. When my mom passed away 11 years ago, while cleaning out her things

I ran across the hospital bill from my birth in 1948. The bill was for $185 and that included I think 5 or 6 days in the
hospital. I was telling my niece about my hernia surgery costing $46,000. She said the charges for her daughter's birth last year was $78,000. Of course, there is inflation but according to the inflation calculator $185 would be $2400 today.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

64. Well....

In 1948, it's doubtful your mother would have been hooked up to several machines to track the well-being of her and her fetus. It's doubtful she would have gotten an epidural. It's doubtful she would have had a bed that could be fitted to her needs. Or had access to, well, lots of other biomed advances. After all, this is how most labor and delivery rooms looked then:



Versus how they look now:



As the old ad used to say, We've come a long way, baby.

[doc03]

66. That is kind of primitive looking. But $78,000 and they send you home the next day now.

[sdfernando]

53. OK...then how many chickens for a series of radiation treatments? /nt

[greatauntoftriplets]

54. And how will doctors pay for their malpractice insurance with eggs and pigs and bales of hay?

[Iggo]

55. Anything! Anything at all! Just don't make rich people pay taxes!

[CarolinaNC]

56. The GOP is crazy and out of touch with the American people!

[vankuria]

57. So how does one barter open heart surgery?

Hand over your home to the hospital?

[Diamond_Dog]

58. ...

What happens if you’re too sick or unconscious or delirious, etc. to be able to barter for your treatment? Will someone (a family member, most likely) be legally allowed to be your “barter stand-in”? How would that work if you had no family nearby? These are burning questions, I tell you!

[area51]

59. That guy needs to F all the way off.

[azureblue]

60. I like it

In exchange for some surgery, I see you look shorthanded around here, especially for cleanups. I know a do nothing but bitch congressman, and I'll trade you him for my surgery. Deal? Keep him as long as you like."

[sarcasmo]

65. America, the flea market of health care.

[Iggo]

67. What about slavery? That worked, too!

There’s a whole bunch of stuff that worked that we used to do that we don’t do anymore.