Texas Creates ‘Revolutionary’ Alternative to Obamacare

Are you sick? In need of medicine? Surgery? Don’t have insurance? For most Americans the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) will allow you to get the help you desperately need. Even though initial indications lean toward success, many Republicans question the program’s merits. The complaining conservatives have long been the victims of jokes and ridicule for their ongoing failure to come up with any solution at all for the ongoing health care crisis. However, Texas Governor Rick Perry has finally saddled up and presented a new alternative: “Perry Care”. To Perry, Obamacare is an “extremely wasteful program that gives away free medical care to people who have not earned the right to be healthy.” This fall, Texans will see Perry Care’s full impact with the taxpayer funded game show, Heal or No Heal, where seriously ill people can play for the chance to win comprehensive albeit mediocre health care. Filming has already begun and the initial buzz is that the show will be a sure hit… in the South… among conservatives… who haven’t finished high school.

Health care is a real issue in Texas which perennially is the worst insured state in the U.S. with over 25% of their citizens without insurance and many more who are severely under-insured. Perry has rebuffed Obamacare implementation in Texas and has refused federal funds for a Medicaid expansion that could help 1.5 million low-income Texans and called the program, “another example of northern aggression.” For Governor Perry a Texas issue requires a Texas response. “Perry Care is a revolutionary solution to our insurance issues. Winners of Heal or No Heal will receive the best health care Texas has to offer all while thoroughly entertaining us every Tuesday night. Best thing, ad money will pay for the treatments won and it won’t cost a dime to the people of Texas. We won’t waste our tax dollars on people who don’t deserve to have it.”

The format for Heal or No Heal is a cross between the game shows Deal or No Deal, Let’s Make a Deal and Wipeout. Will the seriously ill senior citizen win his hip replacement or a mere bottle of aspirin? Or will we get to laugh as he bounces off a large ball and into a pool of slime winning nothing? Will the young Cancer patient keep the 6-months of chemotherapy she has already won or choose what’s behind door #3? You’ll need to tune in this September to find out, but in the meantime you can pick up the Heal or No Heal instant ticket game at your nearest retail store. If you’re lucky your next scratch off might just be that barium enema you've been waiting for.




Photo By: Ed Schipul