Not much has changed in the last year…or has it.
Every Congressman Down in Congress-ville
Liked Health reform a lot…But the Payors,
Who lived just North of Congress-ville,
Did NOT!
The Payors hated Health Reform! The Congressional reform season!
And as everyone’s heard there is more than one reason.
Was it the fear of losing their monopoly right?
Worried, perhaps, that Congress might indict.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that the uninsured took them all to the wall.
Staring down from their man-caves with indemnifying frowns
At the warm lighted windows below in the town.
For they knew every Congressman down in Congress-ville beneath,
Canted an ear to hear Congress gnashing their teeth.
“If this reform passes, they’ll kill our careers!”
“Healthcare reform! It’s practically here!”
Then they growled, the ideologues’ fingers nervously drumming,
“We MUST find a way to keep Reform from coming!”
For, tomorrow, they knew…
…Stumbling home from the tavern at a quarter past two What each Congressman, intern, and page just might just do And then all the milieu. Oh the milieu, the milieu
Which the Payors hated more than their mom’s Mulligan stew.
Then all the Congressmen, the left and the right, would sit down and meet.
And they’d meet! And they’d meet!
And they’d MEET! MEET! MEET! MEET!
Implement full provision; cover pre-existing…how sweet
That was something the Payors couldn’t stand in the least!
And THEN they’d do something Payors liked least of all!
Every Congressman down in Congress-ville, the tall and the small,
Would stand close together, their Healthcare bells ringing.
With Blackberrys-in-hand, the Congress would start pinging!
They’d ping! And they’d ping!
AND they’d PING! PING! PING! PING!
And the more the Obligators thought of the Congressman-Health-Ping
The more they each thought, “I must stop reform-ing!
“Why for all of these years we’ve put up with it now!
We MUST stop health Reform from coming!
…But HOW?”
Then they got an idea!
An awful idea!
THE Indemnifiers
GOT A WONDERFULLY, AWFUL IDEA!
“I know what to do!” The CEO Payor laughed in his throat.
And he made a quick Congressional hat and a coat.
And he chuckled, and clucked, “What a great Payor raucous!
“With this coat and this hat, I’ll look just like Saint Bacchus!”
“All I need is a pass…”
The Payor looked around.
Since Congressional passes are scarce, there was none to be found.
Did that stop the old Payor…?
No! The Payor simply said,
“If I can’t find a pass, I’ll make one instead!”
So he called his aide Max. Then he took some red paper
And he dummied up the pass and he started this caper.
THEN
He loaded some bags
And some old empty sacks
On a Benz 550
And he rode with old Max.
Then the Payor called, “Dude!”
And the Benz started down
To the offices where the Congressmen
Lay a-snooze in their town.
All their windows were dark. Quiet snow filled the air.
All the Congressmen were dreaming sweet dreams of healthcare
When the Payor came to the first office in the square.
“This is stop number one,” The old Warrantist – a winner
And he slipped passed the guard, like sneaking to a State Dinner.
Then he slid down the hallway, Harry Reid was in sight.
Reid was chumming Pelosi, he planned quite a night.
He got nervous only once, for a moment or two.
Then he realized that the leadership hadn’t a clue
Then he found the Congressional stimuli all hung in a row.
“These Stimuli,” he grinned, “are the first things to go!”
The Payor slithered and slunk, with a smile somewhat mordant,
Around the old Cloakroom, looking quite discordant!
There were copies of the bill stuffed in jackets and on chairs, Why, he even found a copy tucked under the stairs
And he stuffed them in bags. Then the Payor, very neatly,
Started humming the jingle from Blue Cross; rather Cheeky!
Then he slunk to the Senate Chamber, the one facing East
He took the Senators’-copies!—didn’t mind in the least!
He cleaned out that Chamber and almost slipped on the floor.
Saw an Internet router, and thought of Al Gore
Then he stuffed all the copies in the trunk of his Benz.
And he thought to himself, “Why don’t I have friends?” “There’s always Tiger,” he said with no jest But TW’s being chased by reporters, those pests.
The Payor spotted the Grinch having trouble with his sacks
And he lent him a hand—he offered him Max Max was quite pleased, for he knew this December,
That the Grinch would become the Payor’s newest board member.
The Grinch was all smiles–he’d made quite a killing
Offering to help pillage if the Payor was willing.
He stared at the Payor and asked, “New glasses?”
The Payor simply smiled, saying “These people are such (You did that to yourself, not me.)
And, you know, that old Payor was so smart and conniving
When he next saw Pelosi he found himself smiling!
“Why, my dear little Nanc’,” the Bacchus look-alike stiffened,
“Botox in this light makes you look like a Griffin.”
“I’m taking these bills home,” he said pointing to the copy.
“There’s a comma on one page that looks way too sloppy.”
And his fib fooled the Griffin. Then he patted her head
And he gave her a wink, and he sent her to bed
And as Speaker Pelosi shuffled off to her army,
The Payor said to himself, “What a waste of Armani!”
The last thing the Payor needed to do,
Was to mess with these records systems, all four thousand and two.
So he drove to HHS, the DOD and the VA,
And stuffed mint jelly in their servers so their networks would not play
And the one EHR, that still worked in the DC
Was the one bought from CostCo and tucked under the tree.
Then he did some more damage
To HIEs, and the N-HIN,
Making the idea of a healthcare network
Just a has-been!
It was quarter past dawn…
None in Congress were his friends
All the Congressmen, still a-snooze
When he packed up his Benz,
Packed it up with their copies of reform in those bags! Stacked to the leather ceiling,
Manila envelopes with name tags!
Three miles away were the banks of the river,
He was poised with the bags all set to deliver!
“Pooh-pooh to the Congressmen!” he was Payor-ish-ly humming.
“They’re finding out now that no Reform is coming!
“They’re just waking up! I know just what they’ll do!
“Their mouths will hang open a minute or two
“The all the Congressman down in Congress-ville will all cry BOO-HOO!”
“That’s a noise,” grinned the Payor,
“That I simply must hear!”
So he paused and the Payor put a hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow…
But the sound wasn’t sad!
Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn’t be so!
But it WAS merry! VERY!
He stared down at Congress-ville!
The Payor popped his eyes!
Then he shook!
What he saw was a shocking surprise!
Every Congressman down in Congress-ville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any health reform at all!
The Congress didn’t care, a few were disgraces,
All they wanted, it seemed, was TV with their faces
And the Payor, with his Payor-feet knee deep in the muck,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: “Man, there goes my bucks.
It could be about healthcare! It could be global warming!
“It could be Al Qaeda, Afghanistan and desert storming”
And he puzzled three hours, `till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Payor thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe Congress,” he thought, “simply needs a free ride.
“Maybe Congress,” he thought…just needs to look like they tried.
And what happened then…?
Well…in Congress-ville they say
That the Payor’s small wallet
Grew three sizes that day!
And the minute his wallet didn’t feel quite so tight,
He zoomed in his Benz passing through a red light
And he brought back the copies of the bill for reform!
And he……HE HIMSELF…!
The Payor calmed the whole storm!
