A Recipe for Scrambled Eggs - Republican Style

When I read Eclectablog's post about ousted Congressman Walberg's town hall meetings focused on repealing the recently passed health care bill, I couldn't help but wonder if Walberg liked Sue Lowden's "chickens for checkups" idea too. After all, Walberg thinks it's perfectly acceptable for the uninsured to get their health care by walking into an emergency room. Yep, that's a cost effective way to provide health care to people - not. Even Mitch McConnell admits it's a bad idea:

It's not the most efficient way to provide it. As we know, the doctors in the hospitals are sworn to provide health care. We all agree it is not the most efficient way to provide health care to find somebody only in the emergency room and then pass those costs on to those who are paying for insurance.

Okay, so we all know Walberg's idea is lame, but what about this "chicken for checkups" idea? Could it work? Personally, I live in a condo and I doubt the association board would approve a chicken coop outside my door, but even assuming they agreed, would my doctor take a chicken in lieu of cash? Are there even enough chickens in the world to cover health care expenses? According to TPM, absolutely not. "There aren't enough chickens in the world -- let alone the United States -- to cover the costs of health care in this country alone."

They crunched the numbers so we wouldn't have to:

Total U.S. health care costs in 2008: $2.3 trillion
US population: About 300 million
Average cost of health care per person: $7,681
Average weight of a chicken: 5.9 lbs
Market price per pound: 85 cents
Average spot price per chicken: $5.02
Average number of chickens per resident needed to cover health care costs: 1,530 chickens
Total number of chickens needed to cover United States health care costs: 459 billion chickens
Estimated worldwide chicken population: 16 billion chickens
Current worldwide chicken shortage to cover U.S. health care: 443 billion cluckers

Cluck, cluck. It looks like Lowden and Walberg are both peddling a bunch of chicken poop when it comes to health care reform.