A Pleasant Dagger of a Song Satirizing Hospitals

By

David Gottfried

Anyone who knows me is familiar with my disdain for modern American medicine, a business in which a doctor’s compensation has nothing to do with patient outcomes (All of your patients can die and you can easily make 10 million per annum) and is solely dependent on one variable, the quality of forms sent to Blue Cross, other insurers and state and federal programs, and bourgeois liberalism, a pastime for haughty and histrionic ladies who are the consummate practitioners of castrating condescension toward poor people.

Years ago I wrote this satiric song on hospitals and docs. It consists of new lyrics to Bob Hope’s “Thanks for the memories.”

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We -- are the hospitals

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So checks the codicils

Of all your freaking wills

We'll only send you bills

Oh darling this instills

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The terror we love

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The nurse -- adores her fingernail

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The ER moves like a snail

Your face is deathly pale

The bread is ghastly stale

You drop your urine pail

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The doctors -- are in the Hamptons

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We -- have infections everywhere

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For cleaning we don't care

Microbes glide through the air

Ready to trap you in their snare

Weaken you beyond repair

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Oh darling, that's life

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We -- didn't look at the lab test

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But don't be a rotten pest

Although we wrecked you like the rest

Yes you're ruined at our behest

Shout and you're subject to arrest

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Oh darling, we're too busy investing

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We -- are Bloomingdales bitches

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Adorned with all our riches

We laugh till we're in stitches

And put you in your niches

Which are coffins in the ditches

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Oh darling, we want more caviar

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We -- are the bureaucrats

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A bunch of plutocrats

With reams of social stats

For those will those who live with rats

Of course we're Democrats

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Oh darling, let's eat

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You -- must fill out your form

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And make it uniform

You must respect our nerdy norm

Or we'll scream just like a storm

Our rage makes winter warm

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Oh darling, let's gossip

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We -- love to slam the door

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When the rain will pour

And you're feeling cold and sore

We don't care that you deplore

That we're rotten to the core

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Oh darling, let's waste time