President
Boooosh. We Are “In A Pickle”
By James Boyne
Dear
President Boooosh:
We are in a pickle!
I got my Allstate auto insurance renewal in the mail.
Times sure are a changin’.
Here’s the scoop. Allstate just merged with United
Healthcare so they said I would have to switch my health insurance from
Blue Cross to United Healthcare in order to be an Allstate Advantaged
Preferred Policyholder
I called my local Allstate agent right up on the
phone and a friendly, pleasant sounding young lady answered with a slight
accent. I asked where she was from and she said Bombay, India. I asked how
long she had been here in the U.S. She said she wasn’t in the U.S. She
was still in Bombay and that she just got this great job with
Allstate/United because of the Great American President, Mr. Booosh.
She said Allstate/United just hired 10,000
administrative people in Bombay and that she makes 35 cents and hour.
“Wow”, I said, “How do you make ends meet?”. I said, “How do you
pay your rent”?.
She said there was not rent in Bombay. Everyone lived
in grass huts in the suburbs or just on the street. “Way cool”. I
said. “That sounds cozy”. “Kind of like perpetual spring break”.
She didn’t know what spring break was.
I asked her if she got good benefits. And she said
no. There is no such thing as benefits in Bombay, just 35 cents an hour
and a nice calendar with a picture of Mr. Booosh on it. I asked her
what everyone did with no benefits if they got sick. She said that she
wasn’t allowed to get sick and if she did there were no doctors because
all the Indian and Pakistani doctors went to the U.S. to help Mr.
Booosh and vote for him and be Indian and Pakistani doctors and
collect co-pays.
She said that there were no more Indians in India or
Pakistanis in Pakistan----that everyone was just a Republican now----that President
Boooosh wanted it that way.
I asked her about my new Allstate policy. She said
Allstate was now like an automobile HMO. She said to read my new policy. I
wished her luck. And read my new policy.
My new Allstate policy says that I can only be
covered if I also have health insurance with United Healthcare. It also
said that Allstate just merged with Sprint also, and it’s
new name was Allstate United Sprint PCS. The policy said that I
would get a package instructing me on how to switch from AT&T (my
present carrier) to Sprint.
Also, Allstate would now only insure me while driving
on certain roads. I would only be insured while driving on Allstates
officially approved roads, mainly the Interstate roads. On off-roads,
which would be all State highways and local roads, I would need a
“special insurance rider” with a $10,000 deductible. The “special
rider” was flexible with a menu of selections (like health care
insurance) so I could select the roads I liked to travel on the most.
Also, the policy said that I could insure my wife and children as long as
they also had Sprint PCS. But they could only be covered if they were
riding in the digital area. If I got in an accident with them in the car
and we were all in an analog roaming area we wouldn’t be covered except
with a “special insurance rider”, called the “Allstate Advantage
Automobile Analog Roaming Rider for Special Customers”. I signed up for
it, just to be on the safe side.
The Allstate Policy said, since they were an
Automobile HMO that I would have to have bought my car at the new network
of Allstate Approved Advantage Auto Dealers. It said, if I purchased a new
car I could go through Allstate, through United, or through Sprint PCS, or
I could elect to be in the PPO and go out of network for my automobile
needs. Of course, if I went out of network and just bought
a car at my local Ford dealer, I may have to pay a “maximum out
of pocket” over the sticker price, adjusted for the exchange rate
differential between the U.S. and India.
I called Allstate again. A pleasant sounding young
man answered with a slight Chinese accent. I asked him how long he had
been in the U.S. He said that he wasn’t in the U.S. He was in Zyandong
Province in Mongolia, next to China. He said, “Mr. Booosh is a
good man. He make lot’s of jobs for people in Zyandong Province”. He
said, “everyone in Zyandong make big money, 50 cent and hour, Mr.
Booosh, he a good man.”
I decided to take a break from the phone and go get
the mail. In the mail was a notice from my employer, asking me to report
to Human Resources on Monday, or I could log on at www.youarelaidoff.com.
I had a sinking feeling in my chest.
I turned on the TV and Mr. Booosh, I mean
President Bush, was speaking at some place in the pouring rain, wearing a
baseball cap and a leather jacket. He said he was all for work, and work
was good, and he himself liked work, and working people were good, decent
people, even if they were out of work, and that he would go get the
workers, and “smoke ‘em out and bring ‘em ta justice”. And Mr.
Booosh, I mean President Bush, said that “everyone deserved ta work,
dead or alive”, and he said “work can run, but it can’t hide”. He
said, “we will win this war on workers (I think he meant to say
terrorists) no matter how long it takes”. He said he liked work so much
that he was going to his ranch in Crawford, Texas and take a month off in
order to work.
And he said the Iraqi people were happy now. That we
made ‘em happy cause we freed ‘em and gave ‘em freedom and now they
can work. And President Booosh said that he wouldn’t stop until
everyone in America was fired, or rather, fired up, about work. And that
he would get the whole world workin’. Even if we “have ta smoke ‘em
out and bring ‘em ta work”. When a reporter in the audience asked
where the workers were, Mr. Booosh said, “bring ‘em on”, dead or
alive”.
I just got my calculator out and divided $50,000 into
$350 billion (the amount of the tax reduction Mr. Bush just gave) and it
came out to be 7 million. That means that the Federal Government could
hire 7 million people and pay them $50,000 each for a year to work on the
national parks, the roads, Federal buildings, and other programs. Instead,
the $350 billion didn’t create one single job. As a matter of fact,
93,000 more jobs disappeared last month. If there is a single businessman,
a single company or corporation that has hired even one person based upon
the “incredible affect” that the sudden influx of $350 billion has had
on their business, I would like to hear from them. As a matter of fact,
I’d like the job myself, since I am unemployed.
The world sure is changing. I think I’ll just go
out for a drive and try to stay off the “off roads” and out of the
analog roaming areas and just keep to the digital roads so I have proper
coverage.
I am a former staunch conservative Republican who has
recently been “born again”. I have been “born again” into a
progressive, populist and will vote for Congressman Dennis Kucinich
(D-Ohio). I really don’t care what his party affiliation is or
whether is called a liberal, moderate or conservative. Mr. Kucinich
is a man of integrity, honesty, common sense and sincerity.
Congressman Kucinich (D-Ohio) is
straightforward, articulate, says what he means and means what he says. He
writes his own speeches and delivers them without notes. He doesn’t read
from a teleprompter and doesn’t need a team of a dozen speechwriters. He
actually believes that the unemployment rate should be 0%. He believes we
need to rebuild America before spending $600 billion rebuilding Iraq.
He is for single payer, universal health care for all because one
should not have to barter away their entire life savings to afford health
care.
We now have 9 million unemployed with jobs
disappearing at the speed of light. We have over 40 million individuals
with no health insurance. (Howard Dean wants to provide health insurance
for children and poor people.) That doesn’t help the 40 million people,
since most of them are working people between 23 and 65 years old that
can’t afford the health insurance premiums that are priced in the
stratosphere.
President
Booosh wants to spend $600 billion to totally rebuild Iraq. I don’t
think the entire country of Iraq was worth $600 billion before we bombed
it. And what the hell happened to all that oil. The Iraqi people have all
that oil, but all they complain about is the fact that they don’t have
water. I guess you can’t drink oil.
I’m worried that Bush will wants to attack Syria,
Iran, North Korea and even Cuba. That will cost about $1 trillion. Its
good Bush wasn’t President at the height of the Cold War or we may have
made a pre-emptive strike on the USSR with 40,000 hydrogen bombs and we
would all be living in caves right now.
The Iraqi’s don’t have electricity either which
means that their monthly electric bill must be pretty damn small, so they
must have some extra money to spend. Maybe Nike, and Pepsi, and Dunkin
Donuts will open up some businesses in Baghdad and jump-start the economy.
Maybe President Booosh should give the Iraqi’s a $350 billion tax
rebate.
Just think, if the average annual earnings in Iraq is
$1000 a year, a $350 billion dollar Iraqi tax rebate could put all 27
million Iraqi men, women and children to work, and provide a damn good
health insurance policy. And there would be lots of money left over. Last
month President Bush said he needed another $87 billion for Iraq. When he
asked for it, he was talking to the TV teleprompter, so no one actually
answered him with a “yes, let’s go for it” or a “no, not in your
life” type of response. All I know is, President Booosh, didn’t
ask me. I think I am going to write to him and tell him to “not include
my portion in the $87 billion”. I think I would rather just have my
portion sent to me directly.
South Carolina has a budget deficit of a billion or
so maybe Presidetn Booosh can give $2 billion to South Carolina,
and give $598 billion to Iraq. That would be a good idea. And maybe he
could spare some pocket change out of the $87 billion (maybe a half
billion) so South Carolina can hire some teachers and fix the schools).
I invite all Americans, whether staunch conservative
Republicans, liberal Democrats, independents, progressives,
environmentalists, small business owners, and corporate executives to join
me in rebuilding America by electing a man of honesty, integrity and
common sense, Dennis Kucinich in 2004. He is a man who will watch
how our money is spent, and watch who is spending it for what purpose. He
will set a goal of 0% unemployment so all Americans can work. He will
provide all Americans with the right to high quality health care that is
affordable. And he will restore the time honored trust of the
doctor/patient relationship. He will spend American money on America, to
rebuild our dams, our bridges, our roads, our national parks. He will
restore the pride and potential of our educational system and give back to
teachers the enthusiasm and dedication that they previously had in years
past.
I truly believe that Mr. Kucinich is the only
man capable of solving the Israeli/Palestinian problem. I encourage anyone
and everyone who has an open mind to read and ponder his positions on all
the issues of our day at his web site, www.kucinich.us.
I believe Americans are the most likeable people on
the earth, and the most generous. We don’t need to dominate, threaten,
coerce, and control, badger, bully and bribe the world. Yes, there are
some brutal dictators in the world but we can’t declare war on the
world, forever, and spend $50 trillion dollars to make it a picture
perfect planet.
If we don’t all come together and achieve Dennis
Kucinich’s goals we are “in a pickle”. That’s for sure.
James Boyne dboyne@aol.com
is a computer trainer, and former sales executive for IBM, Sony and the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He is a former staunch conservative Republican
who after becoming of victim of the health care industry, has researched,
studied, and written about the health care industry as a freelance
satirical writer. He has made a 180 degree turnabout an now supports Rep.
Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) for President. Mr. Boyne has a B.S degree in
Marketing, and MBA in Marketing/Economics, and a degree in Certified
Financial Planning. This article
is copyright by James Boyne, originally published in OpEdNews.com
but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media
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