Tennessee GOP State Rep.: Some People Pay For Health Care With Vegetables

[RamboLiberal]

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.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/tennessee-gop-state-rep-some-people-pay-for-health-care-with-vegetables.php

[Happyhippychick]

1. Imagine the healthcare I can get if I bring chicken/vegetable soup to the insurance co.

[movonne]

12. We should all start paying our bills with chickens, veggies..and see

what happens...it might work..

[BlooInBloo]

2. Is there such a thing as Little House On The Prairie Syndrome?

If not, there should be, and every republican should be required to be checked for it.

[Wickerman]

3. With the cost of healthcare that would be one helluva load of veggies! n/t

[GentryDixon]

4. Try going to Sloan-Kettering with a chicken or zucchini under your arm looking for treatment.

These people do not deal in reality. It gets stranger and stranger.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. Makes sense -

the survivors would tend to be healthy.

And the guy that can't come up with $52,000 for that little heart procedure - well, that's God's will.

[Renew Deal]

6. Apparently the only people that get sick own farms.

:shrug:

[sinkingfeeling]

7. First, there are few primary family doctors that will actually treat patients left in the USA. Most

PCP visits will end with a series of tests to be run someplace else or a referral to a 'specialist'. Medical specialists charge anywhere from $250 to $400 per visit in this area (one of the poorest in the country). Secondly, how does one who lives in a urban area barter with fresh produce or chickens?

I wonder if Rep. Bell has any idea what treatment for cancer or heart surgery really costs.

[Brickbat]

8. Because yeah, the surgeon is hoping to get an organ transplant's worth of zucchini after it's done.

Seriously, I have seen people RUN IN FEAR when gardeners walk into the office during zucchini season. No one wants that shit! These people are delusional.

[BurtWorm]

9. Let's take a poll of doctors to see how they like this idea.

The ones who say they like it ought to go on the barter system right away. But I guarantee they would be charging a lot more than a basket of vegetables per visit.

[FLyellowdog]

10. I don't think there are enough vegetables in the state of TN

to have paid for my son's brain surgery and subsequent medical bills over the last 10 months. I wonder if Vanderbilt Hospital would have bartered with us? Oh well, it's too late now. He's almost fully recuperated. Pass the potatoes, please. :crazy:

[DainBramaged]

11. I think Republicans have had their brains replaced with vegetables