We are a fly on the wall at the Republican formation of the new health plan.
“What are we going to do?” whispered Mitch McConnell secretly to Mike Pence. “If we don’t get this new AbominableCare bill through our handlers will come down on us heavy!”
“First off, I think we should change the name. It sounds too much like ObamaCare. Secondly, what do you mean by handlers?”
McConnell looks nervously in all directions in case someone is listening. It was a bit crowded at the secret meeting down in Dick Cheney’s undisclosed location, which, while secure in all ways possible especially from the prying eyes of the media, was really not meant to be a hiding place for 20 prominent Republicans and their cronies.
“You know,….. ‘They Who Should Not Be Named’!!!!!!!!”
“What is this?” asked Pence sarcastically, “A Harry Potter movie?”
“No!” said McConnell anxiously hoping no one was looking. “You know? THEM!!!!!!” With Pence still looking questionable, McConnell resorted to hints: “The ones who have wanted Obamacare dead since the beginning………” He widened his already too big eyes for further effect. “Our masters who keep us on a leash…..!!!!”
Pence finally got the idea. “Oh, yeah…..them…..” His voice trailing off in realization of a thing considerably bigger than himself.
“We’ve got to come up with something pronto and get it right, or we will be out on our butts!”
“OK…” Pence conceded, “We got to put our noses to the grindstone on this one, I can see that. It should be simple, though. Just cut out everything that doesn’t make a profit for the big boys and trash the rest.”
McConnell drew his breath in to gather patience. “We have already done that to the max, believe me. But the people with pre-existing conditions, the elderly and the children with lifelong diseases are cut out of it. Then, of course, there are those who are doing destructive drugs and will not take care of themselves. They all add a huge burden on a system that is really about profit. The caring part of it is only a selling point. ‘They’ want to make sure that is very clear with us. Without the profit, they split the scene.”
Pence – “Of course! That much is obvious.”
“Obama actually wanted to give the people something substantial to hope for!” McConnell snickered.
Pence chuckled at this. “What a fool! It is a good thing we fought that single payer aspect thing to the death, otherwise we would never have gotten rid of Obamacare!”
McConnell smiles broadly “Amen to that!”
So-called President Trump walks up between the two men and puts his hands on their shoulders. “So how are my two favorite guys doing today?”
“Fine! Just fine!” they say almost in unison. “How are you sir?”
“You guys got this thing down so that we can finally nail the coffin lid on Obamacare?”
“We believe so, sir!”
Trump looks at them hard. In a harsher tone of voice he says “I don’t need ‘believe’, I need ‘know’ gentlemen! We got to make sure this thing is right otherwise we lose our huge secret funding from the pharmaceutical companies, from the hospitals from the doctor’s unions, from the insurance companies……Shall I go on?”
Both men swallow hard and say “No, sir!…Er, yes sir!”
“Let’s get Ryan in on this…’Yo… Ryan!…. Get your ass over here pronto!’”
Ryan, high cheeked and bubbly-smiled, runs over to the trio. “What’s up guys?”
“Ryan, what’s with this ‘maybe’ stuff on the Republicare? I thought you were going to make sure that it is a winner that gets pushed through?”
“Believe me sir, we spent many long nights on it. It should be just the thing!’
“Should be?” bellowed Trump. “We can’t have no ‘should be’ here! It is either do or die! We don’t want to be making ourselves look bad in front of our newly found constituents who put us in charge of the Legislature, the Senate and the Presidency? We don’t want to disappoint them, now do we boys?”
They all shook their heads “No.’ somewhat shamefacedly.
“And we don’t want to upset our sponsors, do we?”
Again they shook their heads no.
In a much softer voice he said, “And we don’t want to offend the Koch brothers , do we?”
Very intimidated they slowly, silently re-indicated their answer.
Now, much louder, he yells “Then lets get this thing done right then!!!”
“Yes sir! Yes sir!” they all said as they shuffled away.
“Tsk!” Trump said to himself as he watched them all slink away. “You just can’t get good help these days!”