Obamacare Bans April Fool’s Day!

Another basic right falls
victim to Obamacare

A little known provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as “Obamacare,” will levy hefty penalties on perpetrators of “hoaxes, pranks, scams, and other kinds of mischief on the first of April” starting in 2014.

The Obama Administration claims the provision is necessary because “April Fool’s jokes result in thousands of emergency room admissions that drive up everyone’s health care costs.” Pranksters will receive warnings from the Office of Health Systems Supervision (OHSS) this year, but next year they could be subject to penalties of up to $1,000.

OHSS commissioner George Wellor said in a news conference that “April Fool’s jokes may seem like harmless fun, but they are not.  Yes, a well-crafted joke can provide a welcome dose of levity, but many jokes are poorly executed.  They can cause real distress, provoking asthma attacks, hypertension, and even cardiac arrest.  Perpetrators themselves can and often do suffer grievous bodily injuries and death.  Even a good joke can go bad, as when a driver doubled over with laughter lost control of his vehicle on interstate 94 starting an 18-car pile-up on April 1, 2003.  Our health care system simply can’t afford to waste millions of dollars for a little fun.”

Congressional Republicans, who have been highly critical of the health reform law, are not amused.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) released a statement saying, “This is just another example of how Obamacare intrudes into every aspect of our daily life. April Fool’s Day is a proud tradition and part of the fabric of America.”

Senator Al Franken (D-MN), a former comedian, thought it ironic that the famously humor-challenged McConnell would stand up for the right to play pranks.  But then he reconsidered. “Hey, I’ll support my colleague from Kentucky if he says ‘April Fool!’ and admits that Republican policies for the past couple of decades have been a joke.”

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) said this is one reason why health reform must be repealed.  “This Administration thinks nothing of trampling on our basic freedoms.  Government bureaucrats shouldn’t be deciding when it’s okay to make jokes and when it’s not.  That’s why my Budget repeals Obamacare.”

To punctuate the point, Ryan renamed the House Budget “The April Fool’s Day Restoration Act of 2013.”

It is expected to come up for a vote in the House today.  The Senate is not expected to take up the measure.

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[If you don’t see the humor in this, sorry.  It’s an April Fool’s joke.]

Jeremy Lin is not Retiring (more short-lived April Fool's humor at Forbes)

I'm not the only Forbes blogger to make up a headline that was treated as news at Google.  Allen St. John had this hilarious April Fool's Day post announcing that Knicks' sensation Jeremy Lin would retire to attend Harvard Divinity School.

Breaking News: Injured Jeremy Lin Announces Retirement To Pursue Harvard Graduate Degree 

The story of NBA phenom Jeremy Lin took a startling turn early this morning when the NBA star announced his retirement from professional basketball in the wake of a knee injury that may be more serious than previously thought. “I’ve just had it with professional basketball,” said the Knicks point guard in a hastily prepared announcement at the Knicks training facility in Purchase, N.Y.   “Everyone thinks being an NBA player is  glamorous, but it’s not. Practice. Ice your knee. Game. Ice your knee. Practice again. More ice. Pack for a road trip. Some days I feel like I’m just pushing a boulder uphill.”

Why is Lin quitting the NBA? Evidently to pursue his Ph.D. at Harvard’s Divinity School.”We’re really excited to welcome Jeremy back to campus,” said Dean Arthur T.S. Jackson, who was Lin’s thesis advisor when he was an undergraduate.  ”He was always a very smart and engaged student in all his philosophy courses. He displayed a real Kant-do attitude.”

Indeed, Lin may have telegraphed his intentions after last week’s win over Charlotte Hornets, when he dropped an obscure reference to the Greek stoic Epictetus in his post-game comments. “A man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things,” Lin told reporters at Madison Square Garden, as he iced his sore left knee. “And since I cracked the starting lineup I haven’t had five minutes to sit down with The Confessions of St. Augustine.”

I'd like to give you the link to the whole post, but Forbes pulled down the post (which coincidentally went online at almost the same time as my fake story about Romney's withdrawal from the GOP race).  However, you can find it by searching Google for jeremy lin retirement forbes, clicking on the first hit that pops up, and opening the cached version.  If you click the actual link, you'll get an error message.

Here's a screen shot of the Google News page showing the "scoop," from a story about the joke on latinosports.com.

Oh, and for the humor-impaired, Lin is not retiring. If he were,  Forbes would not break the news, or be the only non-robot source covering it.  Chill.

Press Coverage of my April Fool's Joke

For a little while yesterday, my April Fool's joke on Forbes was the top news item on Google News. As social media expert (and my cousin) Josh Bernoff explains here, the Google algorithm has no way of distinguishing news from humor or satire. When I wrote the piece, I was targeting the human demographic so I guess it's no surprise that the robot didn't get the joke.

Gawker picked it up (screenshot at left is theirs) and saw it as a setback for Forbes's journalistic integrity. By that time, Forbes had taken it down. The Washington Post reported on the kerfuffle on their Style blog.

My takeaway from this episode is that there really should be a way to distinguish commentary from news. In newspapers, commentary is clearly labeled as commentary or opinion and typically presented in a separate part of the newspaper. I know the last two interior pages of section 1 of the New York Times are editorials and opinion and no thought at all is required to figure out that David Brooks is not a journalist.

Reputable news sites like Forbes should agree to insert an HTML code that identifies items by type. It could be just news or commentary, or there could be finer distinctions such as sports, people, etc., like the sections of a newspaper. There could even be a category for humor or satire.

Then even a robot would be able to get the joke.

[The post in question is here.]

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