he White House announced a daring new plan this week to address the nation's ballooning health care costs, which are crippling employers and causing otherwise sensible Americans to talk about national health care like dirty fucking socialists. By making poor health a law-enforcement issue, Washington hopes to get tough on the sick with bold mandatory sentencing for citizens convicted of harboring cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

"It's time to stamp out this national cancer," announced President Bush to a menagerie of stuffed animals standing in for reporters who thought the subject of the press conference tipped off an obvious gag invite. "And that's a convenient metaphor, or Similac, because I'm actually talking about cancer. And diabetes. Uh, heart disease… what are some of the other ones? The shits. Definitely got to stamp out the shits."

The new "War on Illness" will integrate aspects of several national programs aimed at ending GDP-draining sickness, including "Get Tough on Cancer," "Zero Tolerance for Juvenile Diabetes" and "Not in My Neighborhood: StrokeBusters." Supporters hope the new initiatives will sweep America's streets clean of the sickly and infirm, and keep future generations safe from the social decay caused by sick people.

"If you choose to get terminally ill, well, that's a mistake you're going to regret," crowed Judge Thomas Redbone in support of the plan, posing with an impressively oversized gavel. "No longer can we tolerate this blight on our neighborhoods or the threat it poses to our children."

Under the guidelines of the new plan, a first offense for harboring cancer, diabetes, pneumonia or other Class 5 controlled illnesses will trigger a mandatory five-year sentence, with repeat offenders coming out of cancer remission to receive life without the possibility of parole. The death penalty remains a possibility should the disease be diagnosed as fatal. Even more controversial is the plan's call for strict "Three Strikes and You're Out" sentencing for perpetrators of mental illness, to deal with wayward individuals lacking the willpower or strength of character to stay sane.

While predictably receiving criticism from the sick and terminally liberal, Bush's plan is already garnering widespread support from Americans tired of worrying about their kids falling victim to this societal scourge, and those who worry they themselves could one day be robbed by a sick person desperate for health care.

"It's a tough law, but fair," conceded June Striber, a former cancer sufferer now in remission. June hopes that with God's help, she'll remain on the right side of the law.

Critics question how Bush intends to implement the plan without addressing the problem of our nation's already overcrowded prisons. The president quelled these concerns with news that the incarceration overflow will be handled by converting schools closed due to recent education cutbacks into prisons, as well as GM factories shuttered due to overseas outsourcing and museums no one was visiting anyway. According to the president, even further room for sickly inmates can easily be found in abandoned K-Marts and in failed dot-com office space nationwide.

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OH MY GOD SNOW

Please, George, watch that disgusting mouth of yours. Nobody cares if it's the truth, they don't want to hear it anyway. The truth is not always beautiful, George, and in this case, it's positively sickening.

Do you really think anybody wants to hear about your medical history, your sexual proclivities, or a combination of either? No, George. Giving you the simplest, quickest answer: No, they don't. That sound you hear isn't the whisper of a freshly-created buzz, or catty town gossip. It's dry-heaving, and you've caused it, George.

Let's assume for one second you even had a reasonable excuse to mention you've recently begun taking that Cialis drug—and that's a big enough if, George. Bypassing that, was the look of disgust some clear signal you should proceed with the story, adding even more detail and description when possible? I think not. Did the way my face flushed red and the gasp that came out of my mouth, did these things beg for elaboration on your fascinating story about the dick pills? Because I personally fail to see the encouragement.

I was watching the crowd reaction, perhaps better than you were, and I didn't see anyone asking to hear about your erectile dysfunction, either with words, facial expressions, or body language. It's possible, I suppose, given that my eyesight is not what it used to be, some schmuck far in the back of the crowded room wore a T-shirt asking for you to tell us more about your floppy phallus, but we've had discussions before about you following the advice of a T-shirt before, so that certainly can't be it.

Maybe you assumed, incorrectly, people would be fascinated with the articulate description of your medical exam. Nope, George, a resounding nope. The image forced upon our minds of a doctor with his hands squeezing your furry scrotum is only slightly more appetizing that the unwelcome imagined sight of you with your pants around your ankles, your withered drumstick cranking up for action.

And if it needs saying, thank you so much for dragging me into your embarrassing reality. The fact we showed up together to the soiree, even forgetting our marriage of seemingly endless years, automatically leads people to assume you would be using that deadly medicated erection on yours truly. Did I warrant your hate so much as to make people think we have sex together? Not even on our best day together, George, not with a belly full of booze and a borrowed dick. But I hardly had time to explain that, did I? Agnes was too busy asking us to leave for me to assure her you and I have never even been naked in the same room together. And if only I could have gone a few more years, I'm sure death would have claimed me and I would have avoided the ugly prospect of having to imagine you unclothed. I want to check with your mother, bless her piteous soul, and make sure you actually were born naked. Even God would not be so cruel as to do that to a woman—perhaps you emerged from the woman with a seersucker suit made of placenta. It's the one thought that gives me hope for a heaven.

Everyone at the party lived in a happier world before you arrived. The mere notion that something resembling a penis lives in your pants is more than anyone should have to live with. I can never go back to the childlike innocence I once held, and even saying the word "erection" should bring me post-traumatic flashbacks for the rest of my life. A life, by the by, which will be dedicated to making you one hundred percent miserable from now on, of course. The game starts here, you dangling dandy.

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"I remember in my youth, I had made a mask out of rubber bands and construction paper. It was a beautiful thing, glittering with sparkles I had glued around the eye holes. I would wear it everywhere and would make people call me 'Mr. Dingle' and refer to myself in third person as in 'Mr. Dingle would like some mashed potatoes' and 'Mr. Dingle demands we watch cartoons.' One day, my father approached me with a sad look on his face. Great Aunt Mable had died of pneumonia and the family was in mourning. So my father says to me, in that gentle way of his, 'Son. We all like Mr. Dingle, but I'm afraid he's not invited to the funeral. Only you were invited.' I was stunned. I said, 'Dad! I'm 22 years old! I'll decide whether Mr. Dingle is invited or not!' Mr. Dingle enjoyed that funeral. I think Great Aunt Mable would have been proud."

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