Rotary Log: December 12, 2013 (Health Care)

Ok, lots to cover in this issue, so let’s get right to it:

December 12^th meeting

People were in such great Christmas spirit that it took President Dave several attempts to quiet the crowd down so he could move on with the meeting. It is always great to start a meeting with a new member induction. Today we welcomed  Cleo Villaflores to our ranks. Cleo comes from Exeter where she lives with her husband and 5 year old daughter. She has worked for State Farm for 7 years, and for the past couple of years has worked for Aileen Dugan. Cleo is excited to get to work with us and has already volunteered to write the log!!

Chairman of the Nominating Committee, past president Ted, submitted the following slate of officers for next year and the submission was unanimously approved:

President Tricia Cummings, President Elect Bill Hurley, Vice President James Petersen, Treasurer Joe Bove, Secretary Deb Grabowski and Sergeant at Arms Justin Finn. Thank you all for your service year in and year out.

Our club recently donated $1,000 to local mental health program Seacoast Pathways, according to President Dave…225 meals were delivered at Thanksgiving with the help of 90 volunteers organized by Pricilla…100 Seniors enjoyed a Christmas lunch with us thanks to Deb…tree sales are going along great…Interact has raised $300 to go to victims of the train derailment and other special projects…we collected a gratuity for our waitstaff…President Dave read some thankyou letters from those receiving Thanksgiving dinners…the auction is coming up February 20 so mark your calendars (they will take Christmas re-gifts so don’t be so quick to return them…there is a meeting this week, but NO MEETINGS Christmas week or New Year’s week.

The Program

Judd Knox was an amazing speaker. He took all the problems and proposed solutions to health care in this country and made it simple (and your editor likes simple). Judd is the President and CEO of York Hospital and has been with the hospital for 31 years. He was thinking, when preparing for this talk, who in their right mind gets up in front of 150 intelligent people and tries to make sense of health care?

20% of our GNP is spent on health care, so we need to take notice. And the current system is unsustainable. So what is the problem? Cost shifting. As a non-profit, York hospital tries to make their prices meet their expenses. When revenue goes down in one area, costs have to be shifted to other revenue areas. Medicare and Medicaid tell the hospital what they will pay, so there is no help there.  The hospital cannot increase the charges to self-pay patients because they will not get the services. The hospital still has to care for those who cannot pay. So who takes up the slack of the costs? The insurance companies. And the insurance companies are fighting back. They have narrowed the network of hospitals in Maine who they will reimburse for service and they have excluded 6 hospitals, including York. Judd has assisted in proposing legislation in Maine requiring insurance companies to be transparent in explaining how they allow some hospitals in their network and not others.

The bottom line is that no one has come up with the answers to the issues of control of health care costs and who will pay for who when it comes to health services. We need more programs on this topic so we can learn more!