DETROIT, Mich. -- Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the controversial figure who championed assisted suicide and an individual’s right to die, passed away involuntarily at a Detroit-area hospital. He was 83. Kevorkian, who was released from a Michigan prison in 2007 after serving eight years for second-degree murder, had been suffering from kidney and respiratory problems.

As a result of Kevorkian’s loss, Democrats working on President Obama’s health care initiative have found themselves in a tough spot, much to the glee of Republicans. An administration spokesperson said Kevorkian’s passing is a tremendous setback to the Obamacare Death Panel Agency (DPA): “We had always envisioned Dr. Kevorkian heading up the DPA. Now, we’re not sure a suitable replacement even exists. It appears that Republicans may get their way on this piece of the health care legislation -- we’ll have to scrap the death panels for the foreseeable future.”

Conservatives also regaled Kevorkian’s death for a variety of other reasons.

Dr. Ketha Blow, a conservative pharmaceutical lobbyist and freelance Fox medical correspondent, praised the loss of Kevorkian as a “boon to America. This man blatantly robbed pharmaceutical companies of good clients, which surely contributed to the country’s economic collapse.”

Blow often accused Kevorkian of “persuading his patients to take the easy way out” instead of focusing on the vast array of expensive drugs used to suppress chronic pain temporarily and prolong the lifespans of tormented, suffering human beings.

“What if a cure for Lou Gherig’s disease was discovered tomorrow?” Blow had famously asked, referencing a 1999 case in which Kevorkian administered a deadly combination of drugs to Thomas Youk, who was suffering from the disorder. The incident was captured on video and broadcast on “60 Minutes.”

“After FDA approval, trials, manufacturing, pricing, distribution, and advertising, that drug could become available to Americans in about eight years,” Blow said. “Keeping a person on life support -- or at least heavily medicated -- for that amount of time would be worth the pain knowing that a cure was around the corner; but Kevorkian never gave them that chance. It’s a slippery slope, allowing people to make their own decisions about life and death. I mean, if it becomes legal, what’s to stop someone you love from committing suicide over a broken heart or depression or financial worries or even a headache? People just don’t choose to take their lives over stress and unhappiness. They always have hope, until someone like Jack Kevorkian convinces them otherwise.”

(c) 2011. All stories are works of satire and parody.