TV Hospitals Offer Discount Surgery

(Hollywood, CA – Prime Medical Journal – April 12, 2016)

Television hospitals will now offer discount surgical procedures and recovery therapy at a lower cost according to the producers of such popular programs as ER, Mercy and Chicago Hope.

Long-subsidized by the AMA these programs often blur the line between fantasy and reality, prompting the witticism “I’m not a real doctor, I just play one on television.”

“We’ve been on the air so long that most of our characters have died or should have by now,” said Rosy Sinbad, who plays the notorious Wella Setter, a pill-popping social worker at a big city hospital. “Our program takes a candid peak into the lives of doctors, nurses, patients, ambulance drivers and candy stripers as well as friends, family, lovers and adversaries of same,” said Sinbad.

“And we don’t take Wednesday afternoons off to play golf either,” she went on. “We’re in makeup then multiple takes, then prop changes, then studying lines, then personal appearances.”

Sinbad flinched then gulped when asked if they still made house calls.

Television medicine people say they can perform most surgeries for about one third the going rate. They generally have gaps during the workday so as to accommodate other working people. Most of the cutting occurs on camera and thus protects everyone from malpractice suits. The cost is usually the cheapest one will find unless he leave the country to seek medical help. That, the AMA reminds us, could be dangerous since the medicine used outside the United States is “…not as good”, adding that “You’re likely to be killed by terrorists.”

“Most viewers in the advanced stages of television dependency think the actor doctors are real, so what’s the difference?” asked a proponent of what he calls “reaching out through the television set.”

The response so far has been nothing short of phenomenal. Patients can cut out the fat of recuperative cost by recovering right here on the set. Most end up with bit parts on actual TV shows and a rare few become stars.

It was not clear if such medical resources as General Hospital, Marcus Welby, Ben Casey and that horny little Doogie House would be eligible for a seat at the trough. The group plans legal action that has quickly morphed into a further television program called National Health Insurance where nations skim a slice of fat off the military meat pole to pay for its citizens’ well being.

Already critics say the plan will never work because it is too European for American audiences.

– Fred Zeppelin