Obamacare “Death Panels” to Serve as Judges on New FOX Reality Series
To enable production, FOX has bought the bankrupt state government of California and coerced them into legalizing this show.
By Brandon J. Weichert
LOS ANGELES—As the nation waits for several provisions of the highly controversial Affordable Care Act to go into effect, there is one that Hollywood plans to exploit immediately. Mark Burnett, producer of such hits as Survivor and Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? has been given a green light by FOX Television Studios to begin production on “Celebrity Death Panels.”
At a time when the Obama Administration is fighting desperately to cast aspersions off of the so-called “Death Panels” that Conservative pundits have been raging against (Press Secretary Jay Carney went so far as to call them “Liberty Consultations” in a recent press conference), Mark Burnett and his crack team of reality television producers wasted no time in securing the rights to such a series.
“This is going to be big!” said Burnett when describing his newest show. “We are going to have a panel of three famous people each week deciding how best to free a person from the surly bonds of their corporeal existence. It will be done tastefully and with a great deal of respect for this hallowed process.”
The show, set to premiere as a midseason pickup in January on FOX, has already garnered a lot of attention from insiders. Apparently, CBS and NBC were in a nasty bidding war with FOX over the series. After FOX secured the rights over such rivals, the network released a statement that “Those familiar with Mark Burnett’s work know that this show will preserve the dignity of the sick and infirm by allowing the final moments of their lives to be filled with the joy of being cast off from this life by three of their favorite celebrities.”
Fans of Burnett’s wildly successful FOX series, The Voice, will quickly recognize the format of this new series. Similarly, a panel of celebrity judges will interview candidates and then decide who wins. In this case, they will decide who gets to receive rationed healthcare and who gets to die. There is only one winner each week.
“This show is going to cover the whole gamut of human emotions and experiences,” said Burnett. “There will be happiness, there will be sadness; there will be redemptive journeys and falls from grace; most notably, however, there will be the crushing agony that accompanies the loss of life, combined with the uplifting joy that accompanies saving a life.”
The show will have each celebrity Death Panel judging four patients at an LA hospital. Each one of these patients will be without private health insurance and will be undergoing untold amounts of suffering.
The first episode features a man who needed simple stitching but, due to medical incompetence, ended up with gangrene and now needs major corrective surgery. The twist: he is over forty, enjoys the occasional Chick-Fil-A sandwich, and voted for John McCain last election because he liked McCain’s “spunky” running mate. Therefore he will have to meet with a panel as to whether or not he can receive the lifesaving surgery he needs.
Another patient in the first episode is a World War II and Korean War veteran who needs antibiotics for a severe case of pneumonia. Panelists will interview the jaunty octogenarian grandfather to determine if he is “worthy” of medical treatment. They will be expected to take patients’ personal lives into account, such as their lifestyle choices, median income, career, personality, and whether they vote Republican or Democratic.
“Panelists will have basic metrics for determining who can be saved and who we have to let go, based on the rules set forth by the Affordable Healthcare Act.” Burnett explained. “But they are given some leeway to put their own twist on things,” he added.
“It’s like the Hunger Games,” said actor Russell Brand, who appears as both a guest judge and contestant in the first season. “We take these individuals and offer them one slot. They have to use their talents to persevere. No one cares about looks—I mean, if we did, they’d all lose—all we care about is talent. That’s really egalitarian when you think of it.”
The first episode features a celebrity panel of David Hasselhoff, rap artist DMX, and Teresa Heinz-Kerry, wife of Democratic Senator and former presidential candidate, John Kerry. When asked what made her decide to join the panel, Teresa Heinz-Kerry stated in her brusque Teutonic voice, “They offered me a position to prove Socialized Medicine works. What better way to showcase my compassion and care for humanity? Mark [Burnett] told me he wanted me to be bold. That is exactly what I will do.”
Not all of this has been gravy. Understandably, several Conservative and patients rights groups have been up in arms about this issue. However, since California is the set piece for this show, FOX has essentially bought the bankrupt state government and coerced them into legalizing this show.
“Each celebrity judge brings something unique to the table,” said one FOX spokesman defending the show. “They are all immensely qualified to dole out affordable healthcare, so it really becomes about how entertaining they can be—and how much entertainment they can coax out of these individuals who have been abandoned by society and are nearing terminal stages of otherwise curable diseases.” He finished by saying, “The real question is: who wouldn’t want guys like David Hasselhoff and DMX—cultural icons, really—to be their final judges?”
The “Celebrity Death Panel” two-hour premiere debuts January 9 on FOX at 8pm.
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Posted by BWeichert
on Aug 6 2012. Filed under Administration.
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