Will Government “Healthcare” Replace Prisons in 2040?
Increasingly, healthy people avoid the doctor by exercising, eating right, and being good to one another, while unhealthy people do drugs, are mean and delusional, while being unemployed and/or homeless. The latter group is not always bad, but surely in need of “healthcare” to redirect their lives. It makes one wonder, after the “longevity pill” is invented, would a healthy person even need the doctor (except for major medical calamities, like broken bones)? Might being “sick” and being taken care of by the government become preferable to being “healthy” and ambitious?
It is 2040, Mike and Jill Smiley are both 40 and happily entering their 12th year of marriage, with two boys 8 and 10. Once the perfect “Blue Zone Mediterranean Diet” was discovered in 2030, the Smileys have been on it, while exercising the perfectly designed “3 Hour/Week HIIT/Cardio Workout” prescribed for them by their Peloton consultant. They are the beneficiaries of vaccine advances through 2030, which largely cured cancer, auto-immune disease, and cardiovascular disease (by mRNA and CRISPR genetic modification). When they had children, the Smileys chose “autoselect fertilization”, which determined Mike’s healthiest sperm and Jill’s healthiest egg, so as to create a healthy baby (while “staying within the realm of nature”). Jill’s parents are pushing 80, but not to worry, they are taking “life extension pills” which slow their metabolisms/reduce inflammation so they can easily live to be 100 (with frequent sex), at which time they are “retired” (actually taken to a glorious death chamber and recycled). The Smileys are grateful for the government run “healthcare system” which has made prisons obsolete. This system is for societal misfits and not them, as they only carry major medical for things like childbirth and broken bones, which are rare. The misfits are in this lavish healthcare system not because they are “criminals” (an old word that stopped being used in 2030), but because they are mentally unbalanced, prone to taking drugs, “acting out” (once known as stealing and committing violence), and otherwise refusing to exercise, eat right, and have healthy children.
It wasn’t always this way, as in 2021, there were two different systems (called healthcare and prisons). The problems arose when largely healthy people (who mostly didn’t need healthcare) began rebelling against having to pay for chronic misfits (now called “chronics”), who either cluttered the healthcare system or committed crimes and were sent to prison. It was decided in 2025 to a) decriminalize drugs and instead send those people to treatment b) determine the underlying mental disorders behind crimes, and also send those people to treatment. Pretty soon, virtually all crimes were determined to be generated by health disorders, and chronics were soon being sent for healthcare treatment, which consisted of a) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy-which helped criminals figure out correctible criminal patterns (without drugs), b) Physical Therapy-which helped them become active and exercising again (without drugs) c) Genetic Modification-used in more difficult cases, when brain chemistry could be successfully modified, and d) Chemical Calming-which was reserved for the most difficult cases. This “healthcare system” also solved the homeless problem, as mental outpatients were housed in large treatment centers (which were made to look like giant cities), and made them feel “normal”. The most hardened criminals still had to be separated from the others (for fear of violence), but even most of them were successfully managed by Genetic Modification/Chemical Calming (GM/CC) methods (except for Hannibal Lector Jr. who was kept in a cage with a leather mask). White collar criminals such as the 93 year-old Donald Trump were kept in a compound that looked like a seaside golf-course/resort, but was actually laden with GM/CC agents designed to decrease sociopathy, megalomania, and access to Fox News.
The funny thing about this healthcare system is that prior to 2025, many of these people were self-medicating with drugs…drugs to calm you if you were hyper, drugs to excite you if you were too calm. The net effect was that these people on drugs went into treatment for…more drugs! Yes, a certain percentage (about 40%) were eventually released to the ranks of the “normal” through a learned regimen of diet and exercise, but about 60% were apparently hard-wired to need chemical modification for life. The irony was that no sooner did the “normal” ones get the chronically “ill” off their medical plans, than they inherited them on the “prison” tax bill (so that they had to pay for them one way or another). There was a Republican-led movement to bill the families of those needing “healthcare” (since they had largely failed to use the well-known “auto-select fertilization”, longevity pill, perfect diet and exercise methods, or forgotten to take their genetic modification vaccines). However, the Democrats successfully pleaded that these families were not at fault as they were “disadvantaged” and so society at large glumly picked up the tab. One wonders if there will now be generations of families nursing off the “healthcare” breast, as it is a kind of free lunch. Some have gone so far as to feign criminality or mental illness just to be able to enter one of these rather lavish facilities (made to look “normal” so the guests won’t feel bad). There is still an incentive to be “normal”, but in the effort to make the chronics feel “normal” (and doing such a good job of it), “normal” people are starting to wonder if they’d be better off as “chronics”. As such, the government has recently taken all electronic PC filters off, allowed “normals” to make fun of “chronics” so as to decrease the rate of “normals” feigning “chronic” illness (once known as “crime”).
For the record, about 80% were considered “normal” and not in need of “healthcare”, but about 1/4 of those people were shaky and needed an occasional jolt of alcohol, puff of pot, or pop of a pill to maintain this status (which had always involved higher pay and better social acceptance). About half the “chronics” were nicknamed “incorrigibles” because genetic modifications had little effect and they were mostly on chemical calmers. Psychologists and Scientists debated endlessly about how to get more incorrigibles off these chemicals, but it seemed that many were wired badly from the start.
As for the many octa and nonagenarians running around (and frankly engaging in too much sex and drugs), “retirement” had taken on a whole new meaning. At one time, society was content to let people live as long as they liked, but that was before the longevity drugs started making people live almost indefinitely and Social Security got out of whack. Soon, the Social Security eligibility age had to be raised to 87, and many kept working until that point. Next, there were 13 years of wild partying in retirement centers like South Florida and Mexico, which made the old college Spring Breaks look passive by comparison. To control costs (and give younger people a chance), an “ultimate retirement celebration” was conceived, where all of the 100 year old subject’s friends and family accompanied them to a giant party (a luau, carnival, rock concert, or any other celebration of one’s choice), after which the celebrant entered a chamber showing videos of all their great memories and accomplishments, while approaching a giant light (actually a death ray). Although no one liked to talk about it, the retiree’s organs were harvested and the family was given a $100,000 check. Some escaped this programmed death and started a colony in Africa, where they were soon hunted down by government agents. Needless to say, this “retirement” program is not popular among nonagenarians, who want to “party-on” until natural deaths at ages 115 and beyond. The government is thinking of secretly putting things like lipids and carcinogens in the longevity pills, viruses in their vaccinations, (or replacing them with placebos) to return to the “good old days” when old people mostly died in their early 80s.
Even the government “health care” system has been under fire lately, as some of the health colonies have recently added theme parks, spas, and casinos and are sucking ever more tax dollars (not to mention “normals” faking “illness” to indulge in a life of smoking, drinking, gambling, and roller-coaster rides). It has not escaped the government’s attention that “normals” will eventually become wild (and expensive) Social Security recipients, due to their excellent health. Mike and Jill Smiley have always believed that their “healthy mind, healthy body” philosophy was triumphant but are now beginning to wonder if they’ve been duped. Lately, Mike has been having weekly “nights out with his homeys” to Popeyes to eat fried chicken and curly fries (while looking at porno and gun mags), while Jill has been eating chocolate donuts under the pretext of “a workout with her b.f.f.s” (actually 3 hrs of watching “Keeping up with the Kardashians”). Their boys are so “normal” that no one wants to play with them. All this is problematic for Mike and Jill as after all, if they’re paying for the chronics to be naughty and have fun (while facing “retirement”, marginalized kids, and compromised longevity pills), they deserve to have a little fun themselves. Lately, each has been wishing that they were thieves, abusers, bipolar, schizophrenic, obese, or homeless psychopaths while only acknowledging all this in front of a therapist. Sadly, the more chronics are redeemed into lives of normals, the more normals begin lapsing into lives of chronics.
Welcome to the world in which medicine and healthcare have triumphed.
