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| Preventative Medicine |
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Let’s talk preventative medicine. I know, I know, you’re as tired of hearing about the health care debacle as I am of writing about it. You say, “Adam, can’t we move past this? Why don’t we go take our minds off it and just chill. There’s an excellent fall TV lineup out there, you know. Have you seen Flash Forward yet?” I have. It’s pretty good. But people, just because Pam and Jim got married doesn’t mean we don’t have a responsibility to constantly pay attention to this all-important issue. Did you know that there are still people in this country who don’t have health insurance? It’s true! And at this rate, I might never get coverage, because the whole argument has been sloshed through the cable news cycle so many times that all the color has faded and no one cares anymore. And if no one cares enough to pay attention, then Congress is just going to pass some half-assed, watered-down policy like they always do and call it a day. The versions of the reform bill going through the system now are nothing like what we were promised at the beginning of the summer. Like a puppy in Bob Barker’s shaky, withered hands, they’ve been neutered beyond recognition. So many of the key elements have been conceded that there’s no point in even passing the thing anymore. This is exactly why now is the time to get involved. Let’s all stand together and bellow: “GIVE US BACK OUR DEATH PANELS!” Yes, sadly, even those awesome death panels we were promised have been taken off the table. This I cannot abide. I mean, I thought the entire point of this reform was to make this country a better place to live. How am I supposed to keep on keepin’ on with all these old, sick people hobbling around? These people fly in the face of the party-time atmosphere that this country so desperately needs right now. Shame on them. And shame on Obama, too, for getting me all excited with this sexy new death panel prospect and then dropping it to assuage the constituents of… Sarah Palin’s facebook page? Does anyone even remember why that woman is famous? I’m serious. She looks familiar, but I can’t quite place her. Didn’t she have, like, eight babies or something? The only people who care about what this woman thinks are people about whom no one cares. So why is she getting to call the shots here? If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and an ounce of weed is worth like 200 bucks (I get a good deal), then clearly… wait, where was I going with this? Oh, right, preventative medicine. We’re throwing away time and resources trying to cure what we should avoid catching in the first place. And buddy, all these sick people breathing all our air and clogging up the hospitals ain’t helping. If you really want to talk preventative medicine, you need to start talking about getting rid of the sick people. It’s that simple. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying, “Just kill the sick, that’ll solve everything!” In the spirit of preventative medicine, we need to be killing the soon-to-be sick, too. Old people have got to go. There isn’t enough country here for everyone, and they already had their crack at it. The next world awaits, thanks for playing. We should be ushering them out –with murder. Consider these disturbing statistics: one in eight citizens is over the age of 65, yet nearly 50% of all domestic spending goes toward the elderly*. And these mofos just keep living longer and longer. By 2040, its projected that one tenth of the population will be a disabled senior citizen, guaranteeing that at least one in ten Americans will be absolutely useless. The only things these people are good for is watching TV and keeping the downtrodden Pharmecutical companies in business. But most of the time they’re giant, jobless babies, in need of constant attention, expecting ramps to be built for them and taking the best bus seats. I am this close to staging my own Rosa Parks moment--- “Excuse me, I need those four seats removed to make room for my Rascal Scooter.” There are just too many old folks, and regardless of governmental success or failure on the issue, in the end, it’s going to come down to death panels. The longer the elderly insist on living, the larger the burden on the nation’s resources and taxpayers. Soon their ranks will swell until they drown the economy in a sea of wrinkles. When the bubble pops, the overworked, underpaid youth will find themselves in a nation with naught but debt where its assets used to be, and we’ll be hungry. Like wolves, we’ll peek from the shadows at the bountiful flock of helpless creatures that brought about our demise, and we’ll think about how many of them there are, and how easy to catch, and how tender their meat. On that day, there will be one massive death panel, and it will be ravenous. Fate is unavoidable. What Obama’s reform movement is really aiming to achieve is to keep it low-key. Because a government-run death panel – researched, funded, sleek, sexy, fully-operational, and attended to by clear rules and strict oversight – is a much better legacy than warring, vigilante death panels and the lawless slaughter of old people for their juicy, perfectly braised meat. Shockingly, conservatives are contentious on the issue. As usual, they prefer the lax oversight of privatized death paneling, free from the corruption and intrusion of the government. Silly bastards. *http://www.payingforseniorcare.com/longtermcare/statistics.html  |
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