I haven’t really been paying attention to the early phases of Sue Lowden’s proposal that instead of health insurance we should just “barter” for health care because I assumed she was joking. But apparently not:

Lowden could very plausibly be representing Nevada in the US Senate a year from now, so it’s worth noting how terrible this would be. Checkups for chickens might work if we were all farmers, but what’s a blogger supposed to do? Maybe I could offer the guy free publicity with a few posts touting his services. A Web designer could build a website for the doctor. But what does the designer do if he needs to see the doctor again? Or what if the doctor needs to run a test that costs money, do you mail a chicken to the lab? It’s frightening that anyone this ignorant of how a modern economy works could be anywhere near political power.

I used to think those “Senator, don’t let the government mess with my Medicare” stories were apocryphal, but Sue Lowden running against Harry Reid for Senate seems to want to bring it to life:

As a mom I know one-size-fits-all clothes don’t fit, aren’t comfortable and are seldom a bargain. So why does Harry Reid want to force one-size-fits-all government health care on us? Harry Reid thinks Washington knows best, but I think we the people know best. Harry Reid’s big government health care plan will raise taxes, put a bureaucrat between you and your doctor, weaken Medicare, kill jobs, push us further into debt. I’m Sue Lowden and I approve this message because government run health care is wrong.

Yes, that’s right, government-run health care is wrong but she’s going to keep Medicare strong.