Counting Your Chickens

TPM does the math on "Chickens For Checkups".

• 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 

Of course, it should be noted that chickens are only one of many commodities, and are thus only one component of a barter economy -- for example, Tennessee state Rep. Mike Bell (R) has referred to Mennonites paying for health care with vegetables. There are also the options of beef, pork, turkeys, sugar, metal ore, or even finished products like iPods or gasoline. What would really help here is if there were some kind of single, universally accepted commodity, which could be used as a medium of exchange for all the others...

The problem with a chicken based economy is the fact that most Americans don't have a whole lot of chickens in this economy either, much less health care dollars.  The idea of barter has been around since ancient times, but the fact of the matter is what makes "Chickens For Checkups" such a silly idea is that A) Americans are not flush with poultry and B) bartering doesn't lower costs unless one party takes a huge hit on the value scale, and all that does is cause problems down the road.  That's why money was invented.

Also, 459 billion chickens is a lot of chickens.