What century are you people living in? Bring a chicken to the doctor? Meet Nevada Republican Sue Lowden, running for Harry Reid’s seat:
Interviewer: Most people walk into a doctor’s office and the first thing they ask you for is your insurance card.
Sue Lowden: Yes they do.
Interviewer: When you make an appointment ...
SL: And as soon as you say you don’t have one, "can I speak to the doctor. Can I speak to someone in charge."
Interviewer: ...they want that insurance card before you get past go.
SL: Yes of course they are used to doing that, but let’s change the system and talk about what the possibilities are. I’m telling you that this works. 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.
Watch it here:
Lowden is just begging to be made fun of by the DSCC.
But I’m going to be fair to Sue Lowden and say she’s not actually telling people to bring a chicken to the doctor. She’s talking about “the old days” of what people did, and she’s trying to be all self-empowerment and “change the system” and “yes we can in a compassionate conservative way” and the reason it’s a huge fail is she doesn’t seem to know what people are already doing to get healthcare. They are filing for bankruptcy. They are cashing in their IRAs and 401(k) funds. They are filing lawsuits. They are raiding their kids’ college funds.
And of course the tried-and-true community fundraiser. The benefit concert. Or, for those not fortunate to have friends who are musicians, the pickle jar by the convenience store cash register. Such things are rare in countries not America; here, they have become so ubiquitous no one bothered to mention this staple of American life during the recent healthcare debate.
Change the system? Yeah I think we just did tried that. Your side didn't want to play along. Now instead of no ideas, we find out your grand idea is to take the country back to the Great Depression? WTF? How do you "negotiate" on an $80,000 bill? A $150,000 one? How much is that in chickens? In house painting? For crying out loud, lady, have you looked at a hospital bill lately?
[Post updated to reflect what several commenters pointed out which is that no, we did not change the system, though many of us wanted to.]
For more insight on this story see Athenae and Atrios.
