With no health insurance and little money, Gilberto Carrasco, a Reno, Nev., auto mechanic, didn't see much point in getting a physical. At 50, he felt healthy and couldn't afford treatment even if a doctor found a medical problem.
Then his girlfriend, Eren Hernandez, figured out a way to get Carrasco a free checkup. She found a family physician who was willing to trade for his services. During the physical, the doctor discovered that Carrasco had prostate cancer, but caught it before the disease had spread.
"We couldn't have afforded" Carrasco's examination, said Hernandez, who also uses bartering to get extensive medical and dental care for other family members.
With the economy in recession and many people strapped for cash, bartering of various kinds has increased. Now, health care is surpassing auto repair and advertising as the service in most demand, said people who run local barter exchanges.
Alan Zimmerman, a spokesman for ITEX, the largest network of barter exchanges in North America, said that in the past two years the demand for health care has jumped by more than 20 percent. The company has 551 physicians and 618 dentists who participate in its 100 local barter groups.
Barter is little more than a stopgap solution for the uninsured. But with doctors, dentists, psychiatrists, chiropractors and even cosmetic surgeons offering their services, bartering is providing a temporary safety net of sorts for some workers who've lost their jobs and health coverage. And in some cases, people who have inadequate insurance are using barter to get services such as dental and vision benefits.
There are two main types of bartering: direct and indirect. In the former, people engage in direct trades of goods and services without using money. In the latter, small-business owners and individuals accumulate credits, or barter dollars, by providing specific services ranging from painting a porch to putting on a dance performance. Those barter dollars can be used to buy the services of any other network member. That way, a barber with a toothache can barter for dental work without having to find a dentist who wants a haircut. -- more via St. Louis Dispatch
Beware of trading with the barber / taxidermist. ;) - c
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