Saving Your Sanity Amidst the Medicare Dis-Advantage Fiasco
Greed. Lies. Betrayal. Rage. While these sound like great ingredients for a soap opera or action thriller, they are less than ideal for real life. Yet they are the key components in the real-life fight New York City retirees are waging against being shuttled into the aptly nicknamed Medicare Dis-Advantage Plan.
While municipal workers were promised traditional Medicare healthcare coverage upon retirement, what they’re getting served up instead is a privatized healthcare plan that has been shown to come with fewer options, higher costs and questionable ethics.
The fight to save traditional Medicare promised to and earned by NYC employees has been going on since 2021. While retirees continue to rack up victories in court, the city keeps appealing and dragging out the litigation process. In the meantime, the entire Medicare battle has become a tangled mass of heartache and anxiety.
The whole fiasco is downright repulsive on so many levels – but frankly, it isn’t a surprise. That’s because the agencies behind it, like most outer-world systems, are run by those specializing in greed.
Everything such outer-world authoritarian characters touch seems to be about making money, no matter how many trees they bulldoze, wildlife habitats they annihilate, or retirees they leave without sufficient healthcare options to meet their needs.
As much as we gnash, scream and fight, we can’t wave a magic wand to fix the outer world. That’s because it is a world that was developed, over thousands of years, to keep us depressed and little. Any apparent fix we make is only temporary, not unlike putting a patch of plaster on a rotting sheet of drywall.
All the gnashing is just adding more insanity to the existing insanity.
To step out of the insanity and into the serenity, we need to work the solution from the inside out. Instead of trying to fix what was created by greed-machine people, we need to step aside to reveal what has been produced by and is available from Spirit. And that is eternal health, happiness, abundance and love.
All this already exists inside us. Inside each and every one of us lies an individualized spark of brilliance, but it’s a brilliance often forgotten if we’re swirling in the outer-world chaos.
So take a deep breath. Step out of the mayhem. Surrender your fears, anxiety and the big bag of what-ifs to the all-powerful spark of brilliance within. The big bag of what-ifs is what causes most of the fear and anxiety in the first place. The bag contains a legion of false beliefs that instantly hurl us into life’s worst-case scenarios.
What if this crappy Medicare Dis-Advantage plan makes me change my doctor? What if it won’t pay for any medications I may eventually need? What if I get really sick and it takes 100 years to get pre-approved for treatment?
Instead of letting the never-ending what-ifs hold you hostage, break loose by looking and feeling where you are right now. Put your feet on the ground. Your face in the sun. Outstretch your arms and notice how open, free and loved you are – right this very minute. Every minute.
Every minute you have a choice. Every minute you can choose inner peace. We cannot change the past, nor do we have any control over the future. But you can get extra credit by using your imagination to replace a future worst-case scenario with a best-case scenario.
Why not? What good is envisioning the worst doing for you? What good is rollicking in anxiety doing for you? What good is spending time, thought and energy dwelling on the outer-world systems over which we have no control?
Envision a best-case scenario where you don’t need to fret about any type of healthcare because you’re allowing that brilliant spark inside you to do all the healing for you. Seek out alternative methods for balancing your energies and alleviating stress, as dis-ease often starts from internal emotional, mental and spiritual upheaval.
If you do need conventional medical assistance, ask that brilliant spark inside you for the strength and the resources to get you through. If you are able to truly let go of the outer-world chaos to dwell in the inner-world brilliance, you may be surprised – and gratified – at what happens.
And I’m not just telling you this because I’ve read it in book (or 300). I’m actually living it, to the best of my ability, on a daily basis.
When things get too crazy on the outside, I am reminded to go inside and find my peace. Then to project that inner peace onto the outer world. This way of living has helped keep me in recovery from alcohol for 25 years.
It has stopped the swirling anguish as the city council in my Florida town continues to raze, pave and install things like food trucks in all nature habitats within striking distance.
Focusing on my inner spirit, combined with Reiki and other energy therapies, has also helped me get rid of agonizing tendonitis in both elbows, massive headaches, crunchy knee pain, and even soothed a tooth ache. Heck with the dentist, give me Reiki instead!
I am not saying you need to give up conventional medicine. It has its place.
I’m also not saying you need to give up the Medicare Dis-Advantage protests and marches. In fact, the act of coming together for the common cause of standing up for what’s right is actually another example of Spirit in action.
Instead of being solitary flames, you are merging to create a full-fledged bonfire. This not only adds more power to the cause, but it creates an instant community of support, camaraderie and strength where each flame helps to fuel the others.
You are no longer anxious, victimized humans being eaten alive by the greed machine. You are a spirit-infused individuals brimming with brilliance to reveal what’s right for the greatest good of all. And giving municipal workers and retirees what they were initially promised definitely falls into that category.
You will also feel, look and function better if you show up for whatever you’re doing from a place of peace, love and forgiveness. Show up relying on that all-powerful spark inside you that will get you through anything, no matter the outcome.
The outer world is on its way out. It has no choice, as it’s cannibalizing itself at every turn. A system is only as powerful as the consciousness that supports it.
Expand your consciousness out of the outer-world mayhem and into your inner-world sanctuary and you are no longer supporting the mayhem. You are instead supporting the love and light that is already shimmering inside you, the one that will provide everything you ever need to continue to thrive and shine.
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Ryn Gargulinski is an award-winning author, artist, speaker and Reiki master who has learned to step out of the battle against the food trucks. As founder of Sanctuary of the Wild Souls, she teaches people how to attain and maintain higher states of consciousness to delight in the life we all deserve. More at WildSS.com.