Always Read before Voting

Dateline: January 5, 2010, Washington DC

Red-faced Federal officials are trying to explain to a mob of furious senior citizens that a simple word processing error led to a major mistake in the healthcare bill that was hurredly passed last year. It seems that someone on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee accidentally combined two documents. The language from the now-defunct "Cash for Clunkers" program, which ran out of money last July 31, found its way into the provision of the healthcare bill that imposed end-of-life planning requirements on the elderly.

As a result, the law that was passed containing the following provision:

Effective January 1, 2010, anyone with a relative at least 65 years of age or 95,000 miles (whichever comes first) can turn in that relative and receive a $4,500 trade-in on a newer model.
Not only are senior citizens outraged, but for the last four days large numbers of ungrateful middle-aged offspring have been spotted dragging their elderly parents and in-laws into federal building and clamoring for their $4,500.

When reached for comment, the reactions of government officials were quite remarkable. Said one lawmaker who voted for the plan: "You don't really expect us to read a thousand pages of legislation before we vote on it, do you? We have luncheons to attend, speeches to give, appearences on cable news channels. So we just vote the way our party leadership commands us."

A White House advisor had this to say: "Well, you know we inherited this massive 500 billion pages of legislation from the previous administration, so this is really their fault."

The President's teleprompter was broken, so he had nothing to say.

Stay tuned as we find out what is in Chapter 2 of The Healthcare Chronicles. Be afraid...