Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. His mother’s name was Jerusha daughter of Zadok. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father Uzziah had done, but unlike him he did not enter the temple of the Lord. The people, however, continued their corrupt practices.
- 2 Chronicles 27:1-2
“But now, our God, what can we say after this? For we have forsaken the commands you gave through your servants the prophets when you said: ‘The land you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the corruption of its peoples. By their detestable practices they have filled it with their impurity from one end to the other.
- Ezra 9:10-11
With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
- Acts 2:40-41
The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven
on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.
All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.
- Psalm 14:1-3
I am thinking about some television commercials, but television commercials are low hanging fruit when it comes to misleading the public, cheating people, and corruption. Yes, I know some people try to be fair and honest, but some of these commercials are barely legal. And the thing that bothers me is that many are targeting older people.
Some older people that I know, in their eighties and nineties, are as sharp mentally as they were decades ago. Of course, some of those in their nineties lost it in their fifties, so being as sharp as they were forty years ago is not saying much.
But I think most people know where I am going. Many older people are more vulnerable due to not being as sharp as they used to be and they are on a fixed income. They do not have a ready reserve nor do they earn income to make up for a loss in ready cash.
I think that I am still pretty sharp, but on the day of writing this, I was teaching Sunday school and I misquoted 1 Kings 19:18 by saying, “five thousand have not bent a knee to Baal or is it three thousand?” It is “seven thousand!!!” I am an engineer with a master’s degree. If there is one thing that I know like the back of my hand, it is numbers, but I got the number wrong. Sure!!!! I know numbers and I am still sharp. Oh, boy, what will another five years do to me!?!?!?
Corrupt people, and if you look through the scriptures above there are a lot of them, love to attack low hanging fruit for a quick dollar, or whatever currency you prefer.
Before I explain the “ABC”, there is the commercials on uncirculated coins, collector coins. They make it seem like buying a $2 gold coin is a must buy. Then they tell you that this $2 coin should cost you fifty dollars, but we have it on sale for two easy payments of 19 dollars each (plus shipping and handling which they never tell you the cost). Then comes the kicker. They say, “To avoid disappointment and future regret, order now!”
When you hear those words, you should never buy. They are glossing over the fact that you are buying a $2 coin for $38 plus an unknown amount of shipping. Even if you flunked third grade math, that should be a red flag. But if they change an interesting story into something urgent, must buy, right away… That spells scam all over it. Sure, you get a $2 coin. But thirty years from now, it is still worth $2 regardless of the price of gold. And the guy who sold it to you is long gone, retired, with no forwarding address.
Another dead giveaway that these people are not telling the truth is: “Order Now! With the fluctuation in gold prices, we can only guarantee this price for seven days.”
Why is that a dead giveaway that it is a scam? The same commercial, with the same pricing, has been on the same television channel for over a year. If the price can only be guaranteed for seven days, why is the price still the same? Think, America! Think!!!
But now to the ABC toward corruption. When you turn 65 they give you this red, white, and blue card with your name on it. Welcome to MEDICARE. You have a part A, doctor visits and such. Then you have a part B, hospital stays, tests, durable medical supplies and such. That is all that you need, right?!
Think about it. Before you retire, you have one part – and it paid all of that and we have not even gotten to what is not included with pharmacy at the top of the list. But why two parts? Just to confuse old people and make it easier to rip them off. You know, the politicians are thinking that you might die before they are up for reelection!!
No, MEDICARE is not written into law by anyone that uses it. These people never have to deal with MEDICARE because they have their own medical system that pays for everything, services provided by anyone, forever, for free. All these people care about is getting reelected. They only wrote the bill into law for old folks that are blind, toothless, and deaf. There is no provision for dental care, vision care, or hearing aids. It is not like these old people have any need for such things.
As a side note, a dentist, just before I got a bill for nearly $800 for a teeth cleaning, said that if you have teeth, you need dental insurance. A relative told me that medical providers are somewhat regulated. They cannot rip you off, but there is no limit, federally, to what a dentist could charge. Eight hundred dollars for cleaning teeth is corruption for another day.
So, these people who still will never use MEDICARE suggested MEDICARE Part C. First, you pay for MEDICARE, roughly $150 each month, give or take. So, if you go with MEDICARE Part C. You get that money back, but now you pay for an insurance company’s policy. Funny how the commercials state that the registered insurance agent will look up your zip code to see whether you get that money back. If you do not get it back, they cheated you. With the “Affordable Health Care” Act – in quotes because you get what you pay for and it is far from affordable – you might get a cheaper plan. Good luck getting them to pay for anything. So, if you want a better plan that actually pays for stuff, you might pay more, but now you can pay even more to get dental, vision, and hearing aids. If the dentist was not totally corrupt, an honest insurance agent would tell you that these additions are too pricey for your needs, unless you are hiding major dental work that is needed. The point is that the best of these plans, only pays for part. More on that later.
But the commercials make true statements, just in the manner that they make them, they are like the coin commercials. Their tone and careful phrasing of the words mean … “You have been misled. You deserve more. This is urgent. I said Urgent. Did you hear that I said URGENT!!!!” The worst of the commercials is the woman in glasses that berates and nags her husband on TV for all to see. I know God says to love your enemies and do not kill, but I want to silence that woman for the sake of all men who have lost their manhood. I have never had such an angry visceral response to anything else in my life. My wife does not nag, so I do not know why this response is elicited. (Note: I cannot even simply mute the TV. I have to change the channel, so I do not see her.) Again, urgency advertisements spell that they are hiding something.
Now back to the “not paying everything,” MEDICARE hardly pays everything, even for the stuff that it covers. That is where supplements come in. Part D is for pharmacy. Those people that never have to live under MEDICARE rules that put MEDICARE into practice thought we only take aspirin. These policies are inexpensive and many of my wife’s and my prescription drugs cost us nothing, at least after March or April, and only a dollar or two before then. Without the insurance, the same medicines would cost more than we make in a month. Then there are supplements that can be purchased for the portion of medical expenses that MEDICARE does not cover: the percentage on doctor visits, hospital stays, etc. and the deductibles.
We have plan F coverage that pays all co-pays at the doctor office. We can spend four days in the hospital and walk out without owing a penny, and the premium on the policy is less than what we paid for medical insurance before we retired, which had things like $150 ER charge and $50 co-pay to see the doctor. Our plan F is so good, we cannot afford to switch in order to get dental. We just have to look for an honest dentist. Good luck with that since the Scriptures above pretty much say that all are corrupt.
And that last Scripture especially. By definition, if you eliminate God from your life, that is the biblical definition of a fool, but see what goes hand in hand with it, corruption. And our government has taken God out of their consideration.
And that kind of brings me full circle. What could solve the whole thing is for the elected officials to take MEDICARE for a while and let us have their medical benefits for a while. I think they could easily fix the confusion by giving the old folks like me an affordable plan, that covers everything, and I have to pay very little, or nothing at all. After all, I am in my 70s, a military veteran, and my wife is too. We should deserve that much.
But the Scriptures are correct. People in every direction seem to be corrupt, even the people we vote into office. Or is that especially the people that we vote into office? Bill Murray once said, “So, if we lie to the government, it is a felony. But if it lies to us, it is politics.”
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
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