Old fashioned country medicine

I'm sure you've all seen Nevada Senate candidate Sue Lowden's "chicken for checkups" comments by now.

For a few days, I was trying to work out some way to make a cock-fighting joke. Something about how Louisiana voters might prefer a system that allows them to make wagers with their insurance companies for treatment in a way that at least gives patients a sporting chance. But I gave up on that when I read that the unrestrained socialists in the Louisiana Legislature were not only criminalizing attendance at cockfighting events but also seeking to confiscate citizens' free-marketedly obtained gambling winnings for the benefit of some nefarious nanny state purpose. So the cockfighting for colonoscopies program is out. I'm sorry I even brought it up.

Instead, I'll just point you to this Krugman blurb on the compound absurdity of the whole concept.

But I think even the mocking critics are missing the main point. Sure, it’s funny to see a 21st-century political candidate pining for the days of a barter economy. But her remarks would have been breathtakingly ignorant even if she had called for payments in cash.

The key fact about health care — the central issue in health care economics — is that it’s all about the big-ticket items. Checkups don’t cost much; neither does the treatment of minor illnesses. The money that matters goes to bypasses and dialysis — costs that are highly unpredictable, and that almost nobody can afford to pay out of pocket. Modern health care, if it’s going to be provided at all, has to be paid for mainly out of insurance.

And then, of course, it's straight back to mocking. Here's a dramatic interpretation of the sort of medicine Ms Lowden seems to be advocating.