Medic alert

Making the Trumpcare tincture

[A conference room in the White House. Gold filigree all over the place. At a big table sit DONALD TRUMP, CMS Administrator MEHMET OZ, and National Economic Council Director/chucklefuck KEVIN HASSETT.]

TRUMP: I don’t know why we gotta do this. I told them it’s better. What more they need?

HASSETT: Well, Mr. President, some of those TV news people are making real pests of themselves, so we’ll just give them a few facts about Trumpcare and they’ll shut up.

TRUMP: They’ll shut up anyway. I’ll fire them. I’ll sue, I’ll put Tucker in charge of ‘em and they’ll get fired. [To OZ, pointing to HASSETT] What’s he doing here anyway? His job is the money, right?

OZ: Well, you know how good Kevin is on TV, Mr. President, so we thought we’d bring him in on this one.

TRUMP: How come you don’t do it? You were on TV a lot. ‘Course you were selling boner pills and snake oil. Know what, it makes sense. Also we can’t use Bobby ‘cause he’s nuts. Everyone knows, they look at him, they get the creeps. And Jay, I can’t even say his last name. [To HASSETT] OK, Kev, you run with it. Go.

HASSETT: OK, well how about this: Mehmet, you pretend you’re someone who just got kicked off — [looking at TRUMP, laughs] I mean just voluntarily left an Obamacare plan because it’s so terrible. Now, I’m the Trumpcare broker, OK, and Mehmet, you’re going to [looks significantly at TRUMP] negotiate your own healthcare with all the money we’re giving you!

TRUMP: I don’t like it.

[Small pause.]

HASSETT: What don’t you like, sir?

TRUMP: You guys are terrible at scene work! I wanna be the broker. Kev, you be the loser who needs insurance.

HASSETT: OK. [clears throat] Hello, Mr. Broker, I need health insurance for myself, my wife, and two kids.

TRUMP: You don’t say. How old are the kids?

HASSETT: Oh, they’re about 21, 22.

TRUMP: Then they can get their own insurance. That’s the problem with these kids now, they want everything handed to them. I bet they’re on SNAP.

HASSETT: Well, Mr. Pre — I mean Mr. Broker, on the ACA plan they let my kids stay on until they were 26.

TRUMP: [To OZ] Can you believe this? No wonder this country’s a shithole. What’s a 20-year-old need insurance for. [To HASSETT] These boys or girls, your kids?

HASSETT: Girls.

TRUMP: You got pictures?

HASSETT: Not at the moment, sir, but —

TRUMP: ‘cause if they’re nice looking maybe we can work something out. If they look like you, no dice, but what’s the old lady look like? She a model by any chance?

HASSETT: Well — I think she’s very attractive.

TRUMP: OK, forget it, how much you got to spend?

HASSETT: Well, together we were paying about, gosh, twenty thousand dollars.

TRUMP: What! That’s not even a quarter mil a year.

HASSETT: Sir?

TRUMP: You expect me to keep your fucking family alive for a quarter mil? Not even?

HASSETT: Forgive me, sir, no, that was, that was per annum — twenty thousand a year, sir. About seventeen hundred a month.

[TRUMP looks around.]

TRUMP: Get the fuck out of here.

HASSETT: Mr. President, see, by law the ACA plans —

TRUMP: Are you black? See, we didn’t establish what color you were. Now if you’re boons I can see it, I mean they give the boons everything. Not when I do my health insurance, though. White people are gonna get what’s coming to them.

HASSETT: So if I’m white, and my family is white, then you can insure me for twenty thousand a year?

TRUMP: Are you kidding? Twenty grand, you get a pack of Band-Aids and a kick in the ass! [To OZ] We gotta tell people, white or not, we don’t give insurance to losers. One million is table stakes. I don’t care if you have to whore out your old lady.

OZ: Sir, I —of course everything you say is right, it’s perfect —

HASSETT: Right and perfect, yes sir!

OZ: — but sir, these are people of limited means, and many of them are your own voters. We have to offer them some kind of plan that’s inexpensive!

[The door flies open and Secretary of HHS ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. bursts in, wearing, as in “NIH meets WTF,” a coral BellaNiecele bell sleeve button down tunic shirt, a black vest, billowy light green linen beach trousers, hippie wrist bracelets, black Hokas, a hat like Gandalf’s, and a bandolier with little tincture bottles in it instead of bullets.]

KENNEDY: [gargles] Gentlemen, I’ve been listening at the door. My hearing is excellent, thanks to my daily regimen of spearmint and ginkgo biloba, and I heard every word. And I can tell you I have the solution to the Trumpcare funding issue: a low-cost Healing Herbs plan!

[KENNEDY pulls out tinctures for each prescription.]

Got the flu? Elderberry and echinacea! Gangrene? Marshmallow root! Cancer? Thyme and oregano!

TRUMP: Now I’m hungry. OK, let’s break for lunch.

[TRUMP hoists himself with difficulty to his feet; the others follow suit.]

Bobby, ya crazy bastard, I think you got it. Oz, you’re good at this scam, work it up for us.

[TRUMP lumbers toward the door. KENNEDY holds a bottle out to him.]

KENNEDY: Trouble with your legs, sir? Try some turmeric and devil’s claw.

[TRUMP smacks the bottle out of KENNEDY’s hand and keeps lumbering, giving the HHS Secretary the finger as he goes.]

TRUMP: Here’s a devil’s claw for ya, Bob. Save that bullshit for the rubes.

[TRUMP leaves and the others, oh, I don’t know, maybe shed their skin suits and feast on a baby.]