by LAURIE NEIDERGAARDEN, Alternate Reality News Service Medical Writer
“I will never, ever, ever…ever cut Medicare or Medicaid,” Ronald McDruhitmumpf said on the campaign trail. “So help me, I would rather throw my oldest child into a volcano to appease the politics gods than take one penny out of Medicare and Medicaid. I -“
“He was just being hyperbolic,” Ronald McDruhitmumpf, Jr. told the people around him. “He didn’t mean it.”
The scowl on Beta President McDruhitmumpf’s face at being interrupted suggested otherwise. But he plastered on a smile (the trowel was definitely larger than regulation size, but there was no referee who would dare call him on it) and continued: “You know, I’m blessed with good health – great health – perfect health. The perfectest. Doctors tell me that I could live to be 237. You would be surprised how many doctors tell me that. They may be surprised, too. Doesn’t matter. Not everybody is as lucky as I am to be so healthy, so they’ll probably need Medicaid or Medicare at some point in their lives. And I promise you that it will be there for them when they need it.”
You know where this is heading, right?
Oh, come on, take a wild guess. It’s obvious where this is going.
Fine. Make me do all the work!
Alpha President Elon Threelonemuskateers’ Department of Political Enfeeblement (DOPE) has announced that it will be slashing the budgets of Medicare and Medicaid by 104% and 137% respectively (numbers may not be accurate due to wildly overenthusiastic rounding). Why?
“The fraud in the system is rampant!” the Alpha President explained. “Were you aware that millions of 157 year-olds are getting Medicaid benefits? That’s outrageous! Can you imagine what we could do with that money? I can! Buy a Teslauenordurr for every member of Cabinet and every senior member of the administration! They’re a perfect investment for the government – they’re bulletproof (when guns aren’t aiming directly at them) and they hardly ever catch fire when they’re sitting in your driveway!”
Token smart person Amy Sheshutshotshitbam warily rubbed her eyes. “Those names may exist in a database somewhere,” she pointed out, “but that doesn’t mean checks were sent out, or were cashed. I mean, when was the last time you saw a 157 year-old cashing a check at your local bank? Hardly ever, right? Does Vesampucceri have a vampire population that nobody knows about? If so, I think we have a much bigger problem than Medicaid fraud!”
To which Threelonemuskateers replied, “Fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud. Fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud. Fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud fraud!” It was as if he was channelling an ancient Egyptian cat food commercial he had seen as a child.
Token smart person Sheshutshotshitbam added, “I thought Threelonemuskateers and his band of pimply programmers were supposed to be computer experts. In the language the government programs were written, 157 is a placeholder number that indicates that they don’t know the actual number. Has nobody in DOPE heard of cobol?”
“Aren’t kobolds a race in Dudgeons and Draggers?” Threelonemuskateers retorted. “I’m an expert at the game, you know. I’m a 157th level magical warrior…barbarian…furrier. My spells are so powerful that I just have to think of casting them and dragons fall down dead at my feet – not having to roll all those dice makes the game so much easier, let me tell you!”
Putting a warm compress on her eyes, token smart person Sheshutshotshitbam sighed extravagantly.
“But…but…but I lost most of my family because I supported Ronald McDruhitmumpf,” Roger Fellopiantuubs lamented. “Okay, sure, turning our house into a McDruhitmumpf McUseum, with images of the Beta President – who will always be Alpha President in my heart – and placards on the walls attesting to all of his achievements – was a bit much for my wife and the kids, I see that now. But naming the Beta President as a co-respondent in your divorce petition, Hazel? Really? That was uncalled for!
Fellopiantuubs has a rare condition known as softening of the substrate, which has left him flapping around worse than those ten foot tall balloon people in front of car dealerships. The McDruhitmumpf McUseum was not the tourist attraction he thought it was going to be (being situated in the middle of a swamp in Louisiorgia probably didn’t help), so he cannot cover his medical bills and pay alimony to his wife. Medicaid, his only lifeline, has been cut, axed, chopped, shredded, set on fire and had the ashes blown away in the wind, where they settled on other fires.
“Is it too late to run for office – any office – for the Capitalism Eating People’s Faces Party?” Fellopiantuubs whimpered. “Dog catcher. Sidewalk sweeper. Balloon person in front of the party’s office? If not, I don’t know how I will be able to survive…”