President Reed: Thank you. Please be seated. America cannot afford Medicare. For fiscal year 2010, Medicare is budgeted to consume $453 billion. That is 7.5% more than 2009 and there is no reason to believe it will not continue to increase at least that much every year. Medicare went into the red for the first time in 2008. The first Baby Boomers become eligible for Medicare in 2011 which will greatly accelerate its cost increases. Congress should repeal Medicare effective one year from today.

Questions?

CNN: But Mr. President, what will the people who are now on Medicare do?

President Reed: Same as they did before they turned 65. Same as the people who are not yet 65 are currently doing.

MSNBC: But what if they can’t afford their medical care?

President Reed: Medicaid.

ABC: But won’t that bankrupt Medicaid?

President Reed: People currently engage in so-called “elder core planning” to keep assets while still maintaining eligibility for Medicaid. All those tricks should be outlawed. After that change is enacted, see what the numbers are.

NBC: But Mr. President, you have to be impoverished to qualify for Medicaid.

President Reed: Isn’t that another way to say you can’t afford your medical care?

CNBC: But Medicare is extremely popular.

President Reed: Well, duh. It’s free money. That’s usually popular with the people who get it, but it’s extremely unpopular with the people who pay it. We can’t afford it. Where were you when I said Medicare went into the red starting in 2008?

Fox News: But what if the public says no to shutting Medicare down?

President Reed: Then I will propose another solution.

Fox News: What will that be?

President Reed: We have four other alternatives: 1. raise taxes 2. default on our bonds 3. print money so we have hyperinflation that lowers the real cost of paying our bonds or 4. financial repression.

CNN: What’s financial repression?

President Reed: The federal government forces the public to put their money in banks accounts that pay little or no interest then we force the banks in question to put their reserves in below-market interest rate Treasury bonds. In other words, we indirectly force you to buy our bonds and pay more for them than they are worth in the marketplace. We were doing it a generation ago with a law called Regulation Q.

ABC: What will you say to the public if they reject all five of those alternatives?

President Reed: Grow up.