Pentagon Caught Torturing Prisoners with Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Applications

11/15/2005

EWM- (November 15, 2005) The Pentagon was rocked today by charges that it is forcing prisoners in the war on terror to fill out applications for the new Medicare Prescription Drug Program in an effort to break their will and force them to provide information. Amnesty International immediately condemned the practice, calling it “barbaric.”

The new Medicare drug benefit, which launches this week, has befuddled millions of American seniors with its maze of drug formularies, tiered co-payments, true out-of-pocket expenditures and penalties for late enrollment.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld defended the practice of using the program’s forms on prisoners. “Look, you torture prisoners with the tools you’ve got, not the tools you wish you had. Is it less than perfect? Yes. Is it effective? Yes. Is it funny as hell when the prisoners see a four-foot stack of forms and piss down their leg? I’ll let you be the judge.”

News of the scandal broke when the Aljazeera Network begin playing cell phone video of a detainee wearing only Medicare Part-D drug discount card over his genitals and babbling incoherently. The prisoner is heard screaming “no more Part-B fiscal intermediaries, no more IEPs or IEQs. I’ll do anything, just don’t make me read about the programs of all-inclusive care. I’ll give you Osama, please stop…”

The disclosure comes at an awkward time for DOD, as Congress is threatening to shorten its leash on prisoner detention practices. Senator John McCain, himself a former POW and torture victim, went apoplectic upon hearing the news asking: “Who in the hell is calling the shots over there, Marquis de Sade?”

Meanwhile White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan went on the offensive as criticism mounted. “This president has inflicted far greater miseries on the American people than these drug forms. This probably doesn’t even make the top-ten. Even that ancient gargoyle Helen Thomas figured them out. If these terrorists think this is bad, let them try our Social Security reform or domestic program cuts.”

In related news, the Department of Health and Human Services will withdraw the Medicare drug benefit enrollment requirements that seniors solve the Rubik’s Cube puzzle and run a six-minute mile. Officials say the requirements create an undo bookkeeping burden on the agency.

Editor’s Note: Please excuse the Muse for reporting fantasy. As a Fairly Unbalanced Journalist, it’s his calling.

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