The White House announced a daring new plan this week to address the nation’s ballooning health care costs, which are crippling employers and causing otherwise sensible Americans to talk about national health care like dirty fucking socialists. By making poor health a law-enforcement issue, Washington hopes to get tough on the sick with bold mandatory sentencing for citizens convicted of harboring cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

“It’s time to stamp out this national cancer,” announced President Bush to a menagerie of stuffed animals standing in for reporters who thought the subject of the press conference tipped off an obvious gag invite. “And that’s a convenient metaphor, or Similac, because I’m actually talking about cancer. And diabetes. Uh, heart disease… what are some of the other ones? The shits. Definitely got to stamp out the shits.”

The new “War on Illness” will integrate aspects of several national programs aimed at ending GDP-draining sickness, including “Get Tough on Cancer,” “Zero Tolerance for Juvenile Diabetes” and “Not in My Neighborhood: StrokeBusters.” Supporters hope the new initiatives will sweep America’s streets clean of the sickly and infirm, and keep future generations safe from the social decay caused by sick people.

“If you choose to get terminally ill, well, that’s a mistake you’re going to regret,” crowed Judge Thomas Redbone in support of the plan, posing with an impressively oversized gavel. “No longer can we tolerate this blight on our neighborhoods or the threat it poses to our children.”

Under the guidelines of the new plan, a first offense for harboring cancer, diabetes, pneumonia or other Class 5 controlled illnesses will trigger a mandatory five-year sentence, with repeat offenders coming out of cancer remission to receive life without the possibility of parole. The death penalty remains a possibility should the disease be diagnosed as fatal. Even more controversial is the plan’s call for strict “Three Strikes and You’re Out” sentencing for perpetrators of mental illness, to deal with wayward individuals lacking the willpower or strength of character to stay sane.

While predictably receiving criticism from the sick and terminally liberal, Bush’s plan is already garnering widespread support from Americans tired of worrying about their kids falling victim to this societal scourge, and those who worry they themselves could one day be robbed by a sick person desperate for health care.

“It’s a tough law, but fair,” conceded June Striber, a former cancer sufferer now in remission. June hopes that with God’s help, she’ll remain on the right side of the law.

Critics question how Bush intends to implement the plan without addressing the problem of our nation’s already overcrowded prisons. The president quelled these concerns with news that the incarceration overflow will be handled by converting schools closed due to recent education cutbacks into prisons, as well as GM factories shuttered due to overseas outsourcing and museums no one was visiting anyway. According to the president, even further room for sickly inmates can easily be found in abandoned K-Marts and in failed dot-com office space nationwide.