Administration Addresses National Health Concerns

WASHINGTON - President Bush, smirking smugly to himself as he addressed the White House press corps earlier today, announced that he and his advisers had finally come up with a solution to address the nation’s growing demands for a national health care system.

“My advisers tell me that my understanding of the situation is tenuous, at best. So, on a scale of oneuous to tenuous, I win.

“Our statistics show that, although the overwhelming majority of sick people are poor, rich people spend over seven times as much as poor people on health care. We believe that by subsidizing the health care of the nation’s wealthy, we can eliminate a great deal of the disease in this nation. Since lots of diseases get spread around communicability, I figure that by eliminating all that disease, fewer people will be sick. Also, since the doctors will be better paid, they’ll be happier and more likely to give poor people free medicine.”

President Bush then presented a chart that tried to illustrate his point. “Here you see the line for the money rich people spend on medicine. Here you see the line that poor people spend on medicine. Clearly, there is a difference. And that’s bad, right? Well, here’s what we’re going to do. By paying for the rich people’s medicine, the two lines will be closer together. And that’s what this administration is all about: Bringing people together.”

When a reporter asked President Bush if it might make more sense to pay for the poor peoples’ health care, Bush got defensive. “Look at AIDS, right? Lots of poor people have AIDS. So we spent millions on abstinence education. But they’ve all still got AIDS! Clearly, spending the money on poor people is not the way to go.”

Sensing that the crowd wasn’t responding favorably to his proposal, Bush said that they were also tossing around other ideas, including a $17 Billion faith-based healthcare system. “Recently, a little girl with Type I Diabetes, a treatable disease, died because her parents decided to pray instead of getting her the medial attention she needed. It’s obvious to us that this poor little girl died because her parents weren’t praying hard enough. Our program will ensure that everyone in America knows how to pray, who to pray to, and how often to pray.” He then reminded the crowd that, “This nation was built on Christian ideals by the founding fathers. They didn’t have modern medicine, and neither will we!”