From TennCare to OprahCare?

Gov. Phil Bredesen will travel to Chicago later this week to meet with the one former Tennessean who might have the ability to single-handedly save TennCare: Oprah Winfrey.

The world's richest talk show host/magazine editor/actress/promoter of quality fiction is said to be concerned that Bredesen has threatened to shut down the state's health care program for the indigent and uninsurable and return to the federal Medicaid program. The change would leave more than 400,000 Tennesseans without health insurance.

"We plan to present Oprah with several funding opportunities to help our less fortunate Tennesseans," Bredesen says.

These "opportunities" range from asking Oprah to pick up drug costs for TennCare enrollees who exceed six prescriptions a month to a total funding of the program.

"She could write a check and make the problem go away," Bredesen says. "We know that she often takes the side of those in society who need help, and this is a very real need.

"In exchange for the financial support, Winfrey would receive naming rights for the health program, which would become known as OprahCare.

Winfrey, who grew up in Nashville and had her first broadcasting job at WTVF-Channel 5, has a reputation for her generosity. During the taping of one program earlier this year, she gave away a new car to every audience member. Earlier examples of her largesse include buying everyone in Atlanta a Coke in 1997, and providing the entire upper peninsula of Michigan with fuzzy earmuffs during the brutal 2002 winter.

Bredesen says Winfrey wasn't the only deep-pocketed donor considered to help save TennCare.

"We considered requiring Wal-Mart to provide health insurance for all its Tennessee employees, which they don't currently do, but that would interfere with creating a healthy business climate in the state," Bredesen says. "When it comes to a choice between physical health and fiscal health, I know which side I stand on."

(The Fabricator is satire. Don't believe everything you read.)