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Peter Funk Press Vol 7
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| Vol 7 ********* Gratis |
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SENATE GIVES HEALTH CARE A BIG FAT COLOSTOMY
Washington (PETER FUNK PRESS)
The US Senate's effort to implement health reform has
ground down to a deadlock, and debate on the subject has ceased.
Republican and Democratic Senators cannot come to agreement on
anything about American health care with the exception of the
Senate passing a bipartisan, nonbinding resolution which said,
"Every American, if he or she lives long enough, will die ....
well, pound our senatorial puds."
The Senate resolution passed 93-2 with the two dissenting
votes coming from Sen. Ted Kennedy (Dem.) and Sen. Jesse Helms
(Rep.). This seemed like a strange alliance, since the two men
usually stand on opposite sides of the political spectrum. For
instance, Kennedy would look at a theoretical glass half filled
with water and say, "This scotch and water is half empty; it
doesn't have any scotch in it; whereas, Helms would look at the
same theoretical glass of water and say, "Look at this! The NEA
has funded another piece of anti-Christian piece of art."
The five woman Senators abstained from the vote in protest
to the words "pound our senatorial puds" in the resolution,
although they said they would have voted for the resolution if
the Senate had changed the objectionable words to something more
gender neutral like wank our senatorial gadgets or canoodle our
senatorial privates.
Upon the passage of the Senate resolution, the debate over
health care deteriorated into partisan bickering and soon members
of the Senate stopped addressing each other during debates with
complimentary terms such as:
Will the fascinating, well-proportioned, dolce vita Senator
from Rhode Island yield me some of his time so I can
respond to his bucko-jockstrap but, nevertheless, obtuse
argument, and will he give me a swig from that bottle of
bourbon he carries around in his pocket?
Why certainly I'll give the incredible, funky and
superfly Senator from Minnesota some of my time. [Takes
a swig from his flask of bourbon and then gives the flask
to the Senator] And sure, take a pop of my hooch, my
toothsome, goomba-muchacha from Minnesota.
As the debate fell into bitter partisanship, Senators
addressed each other in this manner:
Will the ribald, grody, second story man from Rhode Island
yield me some of his worthless, pecuniary time? It will give
him the opportunity to swash down that bottle of limp wristed,
weasel-piss inebriant he carries around in his back packet.
No, I will not yield my time to the fourflushing,
lounge lizard, abomination from Minnesota. How can I
libate my libation when he is always leeching my hooch.
Besides, I'd rather share my liquor with a rattlesnake than
the bovine lump of mendacious monkeydom from Minnesota.
When the Senate decorum broke down, the ratings of C-Span's
televised segments of the US Senate climbed twelve billion
percent. The major networks, alarmed at C-Span's success,
preempted their prime time programming with televised
proceedings of the Senate health debate and preceded each
broadcast with major TV anchors like Peter Jennings, Ted
Baxter, Tarzan, and Larry the Wonder Opossum making an
announcement something as this:
Tonight we will broadcast the Senate debate on health care
and hopefully the partisan bickering will become so intense
we will show you a Senator mowing down another Senator with
an illegal assault weapon right on your screen LIVE!!
But first this commercial message from Harry and Louise,
that wonderful couple whom the insurance companies paid
millions of dollars to hate the Clinton plan and to say how
much they hate it on national television. What a deal they
got. Most Americans already hate the Clinton plan, and they
don't get a dime for it. That's the greatness of our
American free enterprise system.
The partisan bickering resulted from each party's approach
to health care. The Democrats led by Senate Majority Leader
George Mitchell, formerly Mr. Peepers, support a comprehensive
health plan for Americans with universal coverage. The Mitchell
plan has a full range of health benefits such as preventive
medicine, internal medicine, minor and major surgery, hair
styling, manicures, and lawn services. To pay for the plan, the
Democrats will put it on the federal government's Visa card.
Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, who has no reflection and
whom Anne Rice recommended to play the part of Lestat in the
upcoming film _Interview with a Vampire_, leads the Republican
effort. The Dole plan relies on incentives, deregulation, and
market forces. The central part of the plan consists of allowing
Americans to sell or barter their organs, blood, bone marrow,
brain tissue, etc, to pay for their health care. It also would
give tax breaks to all Americans who don't become sick or die.
However, the Dole plan has fewer benefits than the Mitchell
plan. In the Dole plan, Americans will receive only two benefits:
a lifetime supply of tongue depressants and a bedpan that one can
wear also as a ten gallon hat. The Dole plan pays for the benefits
through an organ inspection fee in which a meat inspector from
the Department of Agriculture tests Americans' organs for such
contaminants as salmonella. If the organs seem devoid of
contamination, the meat inspectors approve them for
transplantation by stamping "USDA approved" on them. By paying
for the benefits in this way, the Republicans can say their plan
has no tax increases.
Proposals for a health care plan compromise look dim. Sen.
Phil Gramm (Rep.) of Texas, who threatens secession if either the
Dole plan or Mitchell plan passes, said either of the proposed
plans in the Senate will ruin the American health system. "We
have the greatest health care system in the world," says Gramm, "
Why just a few years ago American doctors transplanted a baboon's
heart in a man; in a few years they will be able to transplant a
chicken's brain in a man, and I refuse to let a meddling Congress
stifle such a breakthrough advancement like this in American
health care."
SPECIAL INTERESTS BLEED HEALTH CARE
Jawbone (PETER FUNK PRESS)
Many political experts believe special interests have
killed major health care reform in the Senate. Their intense
lobbying, peremptory whining, and incendiary groveling has
immobilized the legislative body. The experts point to three
groups as particularly effective.
For instance, Lesbians Against Government Waste oppose the
Mitchell plan. They insist the federal government cannot pay for
the Mitchell plan, for due to the country's persistent budget
deficit it has a bad credit rating, which puts a $50 credit limit
on its Visa card.
The Association of American Channelers Clairvoyants, and
Ouija Board Repairmen has attacked the tax breaks in the
Republican plan, for those who die lose their tax break, making
the plan biased against dead people.
Physicians for the Protection of Loot, Moolah, and Gravy.
(PPLMG) doesn't like the deregulation aspects of the Dole plan.
The organization says it will would allow average Americans to
read government pamphlets and do brain surgery on themselves in
their homes and get tax breaks. The PPMLG also hates the Mitchell
plan because it has a 90 day money back guarantee on medical
procedures, meaning if doctors don't cure an American completely,
he or she will get a full refund even if inflicted with an
incurable or unknown disease.
If either plan passes, the PPLMG says it would put doctors
out of business and they would go on welfare and eventually
become homeless. To survive they then would need to stand on busy
street corners, dressed in ragged lab coats with their medical
equipment in shopping carts and accost people, give them physical
exams without their permission then demand $95 in cash or credit
card in payment. The PPLMG predicts some desperate doctors will
go beyond just exams and start X-raying people and demanding
money, and it does not want to speculate on what a homeless
proctologist might do to people.
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Entire contents Copyright (C) 1994 by Byron Lanning. All rights reserved.
You cannot redistribute the _PETER FUNK PRESS_ without the permission of
the author with exception that a single user may retrieve the _PETER FUNK
PRESS_ from archives by anonymous FTP or through a Gopher and may send it
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Byron Lanning (swipe@well.sf.ca.us or blanning@crl.com) writes and
electronically publishes the _PETER FUNK PRESS_. Inquiries and opinions
welcome.
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