Northwind July 18, 1013
MEETING TO ORDER: Past President Laurie called the meeting to order at 12:30, noting that once again, she still is not Norm.
INVOCATION: was by Gary Tomsic
GUESTS: Jim’s daughter Carol and Laurie’s husband Rick.
VISITING ROTARIANS: Dave Wilbrecht from Mammoth Lakes CA, and Shannon Terrell from Bellingham Bay.
RETURNING ROTARIANS: Gary is back from a long weekend in Victoria, Rocky from seeing his oldest son get married in CA where it was “down to” 103 degrees. Rick C. is back from a 4th of July weekend in eastern Washington and Coeur d’Alene.
BIRTHDAYS & ANNIVERSARIES – None.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
LAURIE: Thank you received from “Our House,” we donated $3,500 toward their homeless housing project.
TIM V.: See Rick C. for signups to sell duck tickets at the Fair, the Farmer’s Market or Haggen.
Gary announced that he visited Mel in the hospital last week, he is now doing better and is back at the rehab facility. He would love to have visitors.
BANNERS: All the banners were simple white background with rotary wheel style. This represents the Tabula Rosa or clean slate that Norm is to begin his term with. Too bad he wasn’t here to see it!
FINES: Maureen needed to depart early so she parted us from our cash early.
· She started with fining herself for scooting.
· She had planned to fine Norm for his absence last week, but since he was still not here, his fine went up by $5.00.
· Anyone wearing shorts, not eating any red food, not eating local berries, eating berries from California, enjoying mowing or enjoying gardening was fined.
· Duck trivia Quiz: Maureen: Max, what is a make duck called? Bill: A Drake. Max: A Drake. Maureen: Bill a dollar for shouting out. Max, a dollar for not knowing. Maureen: Rick, are ducks vegetarians? Rick, heck no. Good answer, no fine. Do make ducks make noise? Not enough. You get the idea…
· Sharon was fined for volunteering the fact that she likes gardening.
· Jim was not fined, because he knew the number of days left to sell duck tickets. 37!
· Dan and Brian were fined because we have not seen them lately.
· Brian was also fined for using the phrase, “Thrown under the bus.” Maureen feels that “Thrown under the garbage truck” would be more appropriate.
HAPPY BUCKS:
· Dan ran the Relay for Life in a suit, bcs. he’s a lawyer. Spectator: Are you chasing an ambulance? Dan won a Porche for a weekend, for raising the most money.
· Max was happy to help award $260,000 in scholarships.
· Julie was happy about the party to be held for Ron Bauleke’s retirement and to show off their new offices.
· Bill for making lunch at the Elks club, and also selling duck tickets there and at the Ladies Car Lunch. (Did I get this right?)
· Gary for fishing in the San Juans.
· Brian for being back after many weeks – he explained that he had a serious accident with a bungee trampoline and had to have surgery on a detached bicep.
· Shannon was happy to announce that he will be pulling Norm away for more meetings, on August 1 and 8.
· Tim V. was happy to note that Norm has been more absent that Chuck Tull was during his term, when Tim had to fill in. He was also happy for the weather and something else he didn't remember.
· Marlene was happy for the trip to Great “woof” lodge where she was the only one small enough to go on the slides with Mason, and where they did indeed have a bar.
· Dale was happy for a trip to the Oregon coast, and also happy to warn us that he will soon be selling raffle tickets for rangers soccer.
· Max was happy about a trip to southeast BC, where he had car trouble in Hope, but able to get repairs done for an insanely low price. He’s now going to drive to Hope for all his automobile maintenance needs.
· Pete was happy to be heading out for six weeks on his boat, but sorry he can’t be gone longer, he has to attend a wedding in Florida.
· Rick gave scooter bucks for leaving early.
· Rocky was $10 happy for the birth of his first granddaughter.
PROGRAM: Elya Moore, deputy director of WAHA – Whatcom Alliance for Health Advancement - spoke about healthcare reform.
WAHA’s mission is, “We connect people to health care and facilitate transformation of the current system into one that improves health, reduces cost, and improves the experience of care.”
The case for change: of the $2.8 trillion spent on healthcare costs, $750 billion is wasted. Our ration of cost per GDP is much higher than other countries, but our health quality is lower. We rank 28th on infant mortality, and similarly low on other accepted scales.
Why is our quality so low? One theory is that we pay per procedure versus per outcome. Our system encourages, or even requires a practice based on volume versus value. She believes we are in the midst of a “health care bubble” similar to the dot com and housing bubbles.
The Affordable Care Act is 2,400 pages long and so complicated that even people in the business of health insurance are not sure what it says. Several features of the law were discussed, including the changes to private insurance, changes to insurance access, and the “healthcare exchange” system. Currently subsidies are available for incomes up to about 138% of federal poverty level. When everyone is required to purchase insurance, this will extend some level of subsidy up to 400%. The penalty for not having insurance will be administered through the IRS, and individuals tax returns. It will be $95 in 2014, but ramp up to about $695/yr in 2016.
Elya warned us to beware of fraudulent sites offering access to healthcare, there are many scams circulating. The exchanges will be divided into Individual Exchanges and Business Exchanges. This part of the law is still muddy.
Q & A:
Q: How does this affect Medicare? A: It doesn’t have anything to do with it, other than working to reduce the size of the “doughnut hole.”
More info on WAHA and Healthcare reform is at: www.whatcomalliance.org
DRAWING: No winner again.