April Fool’s Day Brings Some Humor to Healthcare

By Clive Riddle, April 4, 2014

The first of April marked the annual issuance of satirical lists from healthsprocket, zinging a range of current topics in the business of healthcare, which I can’t resist repeating.

First, let’s visit a list of predictions of future major news items, in a list entitled -  Top Healthcare Headlines from Tomorrow's News

1. Healthcare.gov server achieves singularity, assumes control of planet
2. Obesity Problem eliminated in United States thanks to Congressional Act to expand BMI ranges
3. Exchange enrollment count after March 31st deadline exceeds 400 million, last minute inclusion of uncovered domestic pets credited with enrollment surge
4. Influenza eradicated after development of oral vaccine distributed in Starbucks Coffee
5. National consulting lobby urges Congress and states to adopt new, confusing and conflicting healthcare legislation - say lack of new laws since Affordable Care Act is stifling consultant job creation
6. Medicare officially re-named "Johnsoncare" in keeping with Obamacare precedent
7. Health Plan of San Mateo declared second largest plan in nation after Kaiser-BlueCrossBlueShield-UnitedHealthcare-Human-Aetna-Cigna-HealthNet-Molina-Centene merger

Here’s another list looking into the future, this time predicting what big problems lie ahead a year from now, with the Top Five Healthcare Crises Predicted for 2015:

1. Acute Shortage of available new healthcare acronyms
2. Global climate change causes the Cloud holding all healthcare big data to disappear
3. Demand for health coaches exceeds supply, causing raid on NFL, NBA and MLB staffs
4. Healthcare exchanges finally end up working smoothly, causing a wide-scale chain reaction of pundits and politicians heads to explode on national television
5. Lack of funding causes medical homes to downsize to medical apartments

And one more list about upcoming events, this time narrowing the focus to upcoming month, as we consider Healthcare scandals that will surface later this year:

1. The "two ferns" in the Obama -Zach Galifianakis healthcare.gov interview were secretly switched out with alternative plants provided by medical marijuana lobby
2. Major healthcare analytics platform discovered to be vintage Magic 8-Ball
3. Move by major Health Savings Account (HSA) administrators to convert all accounts to bitcoins proves disastrous
4. Jointly funded XBox, Wii and Playstation study finding health benefits of exercise and fresh air to be vastly overrated, revealed to be based on SimCity and not actual data
5. High speed disclaimers at end of prescription television ads discovered to be spoken in Klingon language

Speaking of the “Two Ferns” video, next we look at a list that addresses the White House media blitz to promote signing up in the health insurance marketplaces, with New Television Shows Created to Attract the Young Invincibles to Obamacare:

1. How I Met Your Health Plan - A previously uninsured guy spends nine seasons explaining to his kids how he finally got coverage after years of searching
2. CSI: Covered Singles Insurance - Each week, investigators track down an uninsured single twentysomething, and bring their health coverage to justice
3. The Amazing Race - Young uninsured individuals hurry to sign up in a plan before the open enrollment deadline, despite obstacles placed in their path
4. Modern Family - Different dependent coverage scenarios are explored in each episode
5. Once Upon a Time - Evil witches try and convince the population to hold out for their fairy tale past of fee for service medicine, house calls, low costs, and happy doctors and patients

And finally, no discussion of the Affordable Care Act is complete without a few zombies thrown in the mix, as demonstrated by the healthsprocket list Upsides for the Affordable Care Act after a Zombie Apocalypse:

1. Web traffic will not overwhelm healthcare.gov
2. Annual ACA expenditures will come in under budget
3. That stubborn "young invincibles" demographic won't be so important
4. Consumer engagement strategies can be significantly simplified
5. More of the population will be walking and less sedentary