Reid should challenge her to a debate, then just shut up and let her talk.

I tried to take Lowden's advice this week. Well, not to barter, but to haggle.

I've bee discussing a medical procedure with a specialist who is out of my insurer's network. Therefore, I'd be responsible for any and all medical costs in excess of the amount that insurer has determined to be "usual and customary." There is no cap for such excess amounts.

So, when I tried to ask the doctor's office what they would charge for this procedure, they gave me the run-around with, frankly, lies and falsehoods (essentially misrepresenting what my insurer will pay). When I then asked them to put their fees into writing and e-mail them to me, they asked why? I told them that I didn't want any surprises. They said that because of the insurance company they couldn't put their fees in writing (I have no idea what that means).

In short, this doctor's office bent over backwards not to give me their pricing information because they have no intention of competing for business that way or negotiating their price. They're going to charge what they charge, they're not going to tell you what they charge up front, and we have to take it or leave it.

In summary, my experience demonstrates that Sue Lowden is full of crap.

I suggest that people line up with chickens to cash in for chips at one of the casinos she and her husband own. I suspect there will be more squawking from the house than from the hens. I think she has firmly self defined herself as bird brained but that may be too insulting to the avian world.

I'm gonna need a bigger wallet--currently I only have enough room for a couple chicken nuggets.

Forget about gold and silver, there is a new poultry-based monetary standard.

Following the adoption of this new standard, we'll be able to transact business without having to carry a truckload of birds with the new MasterChicken(tm) card.

This is complete historical revisionism, which is typical for a Republican. They used to bring a duck... why do you think they called them "Quacks". : )

You all are forgetting how pretty she is. Leave Britny, er, Suzie alone!

Lowden's Wikipedia page has been updated to reflect her beliefs.

She was the head of a casino? I wonder how she'd like if her customers tried to pay their gambling debts with livestock or other payments in kind??

Lowden may be a crackpot but she has a point -- just not the one she is trying to make. Until medical insurance became common in the late 1940's and 50's, setting and collecting fees was a very important part of the medical practice. In the days before medical insurance, doctors cultivated wealthy patients just as lawyers cultivated wealthy and corporate clients. Doctors made house calls and were concerned about the cost of delivering services. Particularly in rural areas, barter was a common method of settling a physician's bill. Doctors often collected their fees in partial payments. In many respects the business side of a medical practice in pre-insurance days resembled the business side of veterinary practices today.

Medical insurance relieved the medical profession of the need to set and collect fees from individuals and allowed them to devote more time to medical issues. When insurance companies provided a steady stream of patients in the doctors' offices, doctors found they no longer needed to make house calls to maintain a good book of business.

Health care reform is likely to have as great an impact on the medical profession as medical insurance did 60 years ago. I can't foresee the exact changes, but I'm confident those changes will be great.

She's guano.

All I own ATM are cats and rabbits. D'you think we'll have different animals, like we have different coins and bills? Or will I have to invest in a chicken coop?

Sweet Sue Lowden, she make best Senator. She right for all peoples. And, doctors should be required by law to acccept as payment whatever patients have to offer. Barter is best. Sue is correct on the important issues.

If she is elected, will Sen Lowden accept chickens or other live critters as payment for her services? If its good enough for the local sawbones, it ought to be good enough for the jr senator from Nevada. Imagine being on the flight from DC to Vegas on a payday weekend. The only thing missing would be Ellie May Clampant. Well then again, maybe not.

Although I'm a Michigan Democrat, I'm going to defend old George Romney here. George was a moderate Republican who was serious about governing, and would have already been run out of today's GOP. The 'brainwashing" comment was perhaps ill-advised, but the fact that it seemed to have ended his Presidential aspirations was a very early example of the idiotic herd mentality among the journalistic elites even back then. All Romney was referring to was the fact that during a trip to Vietnam he felt he'd been sold a bill of goods about how well the war was going. "Brainwashing" had very negative connotations at the time due to associations with North Korean and Chinese actions with American POWs during the Korean War, and the press jumped on it in a mindless frenzy as indicative that Romney was somehow not fit for office.

Mitt isn't half the man his father was.

NV, LV my home, is a desert. LV is the hub and Reno is the other existant town.

Truth is Harry REALLY IS one of those nice, quiet, boring old guys who leads a quiet family life and has no agenda whatsoever. Only thing I can hold against him is he became a wacko Mormon in his adult life. Otherwise he's a ridiculously ethical hard working guy.

He does lack charisma. But politicians unfortunately get voted in with charisma over ethics.

His son is running for Gov, he's not doing well in the polls either.. State has a lot of Mormons and churches in general.. too many idiot cons!

Marlowe needs to meet me in a dark alley so I can have the morbid pleasure of grinding him into the ground like the cockroach that he is. Well that's just being disrespectful to cockroaches. I once had to shoot a rabid a dog and that was far more distasteful than any thing I could think of doing to the sea queen here.

I'm still trying to get over the shock of finding my beautiful 20 yr/o daughter is now in Afghanistan. She was here on leave at the end of March after stopping in Wyoming to see her mother and never said a word to anyone about her deployment orders. My sister was following her FB page and read her brief post "Afghanistan sucks" and then called me. So I have completely re-immersed myself in our Foreign Policy. Listened to Dexter Filkins on Fresh Air yesterday describing the ground situation and Karzai Governmment and of course it is just a bit trite to say deja-vu all over again. Viet-Nam, how eery it was listening to him describe how Marines control the villages by day and the VC--oops...er the Taliban return and take control at night. I fear the President is being badly served by his Secratary of State who unfortunately still harbors in my opinnions aspiriations of high political office (wondering why Chelsea Clinton isn't wearing captain's bars but then it appears that the daunting task of building a Muslim democracy in Afghanistan isn't for every one). She is much less the policy wonk that her husband is and I can think of any number of academician that are far more fluent in foreign affairs than she. But really my disdain for her goess back to the primary campaign and the statments issued by her staff against Barak Obamma. Anyway I don't mean to offend you here and I will be folowing your comments closely and thank you for your kind sentiments.

Why doesn't this woman, and all her barter "supporters," publicly drop any health insurance they have, and announce that henceforth they will obtain all health services only through barter? It would be an excellent test of her ideas.