Sue Lowden gets some support for her often repeated “gaffe”

US Senate candidate Sue Lowden (R-NV) has been getting lots of criticism over the last several days for her suggestion that patients should barter with their doctors for payment of service.

In case you missed her statement on the TV show Nevada Newsmakers she said (video below):

"You know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor, they would say I’ll paint your house," she said. "I mean, that’s the old days of what people would do to get health care with your doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people. I’m not backing down from that system."

The above statement by Lowden was in response to her original statement that she made in Mesquite where she said:

"And I would have suggested, and I think that bartering is really good. Those doctors who you pay cash, you can barter, and that would get prices down in a hurry," she said. "And I would say go out, go ahead out and pay cash for whatever your medical needs are, and go ahead and barter with your doctor."

And to this day she continues to stand by her statement while her staff tries to back her away from it.

But when she stands by her statement and continues to repeat it in various forms, it is NOT a gaffe. A gaffe is something that is said off the cuff by mistake one time, Lowden has been given the chance to back away from her statement on more than one occasion and she says she stands by her statement, which means it is NOT a gaffe.

Some of her supporters such as the conservative newspaper the Las Vegas Review-Journal are calling her statement a gaffe, “In response to the bartergate gaffe, Lowden went on the offensive.” And even some right wing bloggers have picked up on the talking point, and have begun calling it a gaffe to soften the well deserved ridicule she has been receiving for her statement that is not a gaffe.

Lowden had even gotten a doctor to write a letter to the Review-Journal in support of bartering. Dr. Robin Titus, a friend of Sue Lowden, sent a letter to the editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal in support of the barter system. Dr. Titus says in the letter that she has “bartered with patients -- for alfalfa hay, a bath tub, yard work and horse shoeing in exchange for my care.”

Sue Lowden did not make a gaffe, a mistake, or a blunder, because she stands by her statement, she continues to repeat her statement of bartering with doctors and she even had a friend of hers write a letter in support of her barter health care plan. No gaffes, just a very bad idea. It may play well in rural locations, but not in most suburban areas and cities where the majority of Americans live and work.