You thought it was too complicated!

You thought, "holy shit, how can I ever figure that out?"

Stop thinking that! We’ve got it all right here!

The following ten super-nifty tips will help you navigate the brave new world of the Medicare Drug Benefit:

1. You must be over the age of 63.5 on the Mayan calendar.

2. You receive benefits only if you buy tons and tons of drugs. So, if you don’t buy a lot of drugs now, you need to get busy. Rush Limbaugh had it right: if you’re not sick, stock up anyway.

3. Your benefits will vary according to the following chart:

4. The preceding chart will not make sense until you acquire the Medicare Benefits Chart Decoder Ring, available with select Flash Gordon Comic Books, while supplies last.

5. The Medicare program is not allowed to negotiate with drug manufacturers to reduce the cost of drugs. Therefore, it is likely you will only be able to afford one drug at a time. In order to expedite orders, Medicare has chosen the new "Long Weekend Viagra" drug for all patients. This way, even if you are really, really sick, you will be too busy catching quickies with the local farm animals to notice the pain.

6. In a stunning reversal, the Federal government will now fully fund Planned Parenthood clinics for sheep.

7. Sheep and other farm animals are advised to avoid the state of Florida.

8. You may notice that #5 contradicts #2. This is part of The Plan. To reconcile these points, you must journey to Narnia and seek a beautiful woman offering samples of Turkish Delight. Do whatever she says.

9. You may have seen advertisements from the AARP supporting the Medicare Drug Benefit. This is brought to you by the AARP’s Pharmaceutical Whore Division, which leverages the talents of former Mustang Ranch employees for the greater good of mankind*.

10. The Medicare Drug Benefit program is designed to bankrupt Medicare within 15 years. When this occurs, the whole thing will be replaced with a new, super-secret program, which will take care of absolutely everything. Scientists are currently working around the clock to determine what exactly this program will be. At this point we can only tell you it involves images of the Virgin Mary embedded in tubs of cream cheese.

*"mankind" specifically refers to 9 pharmaceutical executives who were frequent visitors to The Ranch in the 1970's.

8:31:41 AM