Arbitration & Mediation

Finger-licking good health care reform: bartering chickens for doctor visits

By Diane Levin

From the “You just can’t make this stuff up” file…

Bartering has grown increasingly popular among those seeking other ways to do business when cash is short. Bartering, of course, may not be the ideal fit for every transaction, as Republican Senate candidate Sue Lowden recently learned the hard way when she took heat for her proposal to remedy America?s health care woes and drive costs down: encourage patients to barter poultry for medical treatment.

As Steve Benen, Washington Monthly, reported:

“I’m telling you that this works,” the Republican candidate explained. “You know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor. They would say, ‘I’ll paint your house.’ I mean, that’s the old days of what people would do to get health care with your doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people. I’m not backing down from that system.”

Some enterprising wag has helpfully created a handy online calculator that enables physicians and patients to determine the proper chicken exchange rate for common medical procedures.

Full post as published by Online Guide to Mediation on April 29, 2010 (boomark / email).