“Trump’s Medicaid cuts are coming for rural Americans: ‘It’s going to have to hit them first.’ Experts worry the tax-and-spending bill will gut healthcare and hospitals, especially in states like North Carolina.” — The Guardian
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The Department of Health and Human Services is excited to announce that, thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill™, which will Make Rural America Great Again, millions of rustic patriots are about to embark on an exciting journey of unregulated medicinal self-discovery. No longer shackled by the burdens of Medicaid, they’ll realize that Nosy Big Government was never going to solve anyone’s problems by paying bills willy-nilly.
In place of federal handouts, we’re ready to respect hardy farm folk by reintroducing a time-honored country tradition into the health care sphere: bartering.
This financial system has existed since the dawn of “just folks.” But somewhere along the way, we forgot the joy of going to market with a dozen eggs and coming home with enough pâté to anchor a charcuterie board for a week.
Let’s talk about the ladies. Say you’re pregnant. Maybe you need some health care. But you’re low on cash. Well, look around you—you could trade a laying hen for a gestational diabetes test. Or five bushels of peaches for an ultrasound, and the recipe for your famous pecan pie for blood work. Your 2000 Ford Escort and a quart of buttermilk should cover a standard vaginal birth. Be open to the bartering process. Flexibility is the cornerstone of any successful rural birthing plan.
Our advice: Keep it simple. Extra services like epidurals are nothing more than elaborate hoaxes designed by the left to rob women of God’s gift of increased pain in childbirth.
And, sure, things can go wrong. You could wind up with an emergency C-section with complications. But is owning a farm all you’d dreamed it would be anyway?
It’s only right that farmers be the first relieved of the burdens of socialized medicine. Farmers feed our great nation. Without their toil in wheat fields, there’s no brioche or pain de campagne on the table at Chez Franz. We’d be lucky to gnaw on a stale pretzel stick.
It’s time to give back.
Now, we do acknowledge one potential hiccup: the likely mass closure of rural hospitals. But don’t worry—we’re proposing a can-do solution.
You’ve heard of barn-raisings? Why not clinic-raisings? What’s to stop freedom-loving Americans from grabbing a hammer and building their own health centers? As for staffing? Come on. These folks have probably set a horse leg or delivered a goat or two. Who better to remove your gall bladder?
Naturally, Democrats will fuss about “credentials” and “science,” so we’re introducing a voluntary Freedom Medical Exam, available at select Farm & Fleet locations. It consists of identifying major organs on a diagram of a cow. Pass, and you’ll be certified as a “Health Partner,” legally authorized to diagnose, prescribe, and charge in zucchini.
In conclusion, stay healthy, indeed. But more importantly, stay sovereign. Remember: If you can shuck corn and wrangle pigs, you can deliver breech twins.
This is the future of medicine. For some people. And we’re pretty chuffed about it.