Rotary Gimlet for October 26, 2017 (Oct 23, 2017)

On a beautiful October afternoon, Club 25ers assembled in the Lyric Conference Room at the Holiday Inn. President Tricia Bunten rang the Rotary Bell calling us to order. All were in good voice as we proudly sang “The Star Spangled Banner” with accompaniment by Past President John Baumgarten. Past President Dick Carlson delivered the invocation by sharing some thoughts from the book Flow by author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. “Flow” is “a condition that occurs when people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sake of doing it.” Dick observed a “flow” at Rotary Rose Day distribution sites as Rotarians distributed beautiful roses to joyful recipients.

The Fellowship Report was delivered by Past President Bill Gravelle who welcomed one visiting Rotarian from Galena, IL Janet Eggleston, a guest of Past President Elaine Hansen. She exchanged a Galena Rotary Banner with President Tricia Bunten. Our Chair of the Day Mark Eckman played host to his wife and community volunteer Mary (aka: La La) Eckman, Patrick Shoenfelder, and David Sproat. Future member Justin Terch was a guest of the club. Dave Nolle also brought a future member – his son and Cub Scout popcorn seller, Luke Nolle. The rest of the fellowship report brought a few dollars to the Golden Can: a photo of a beautiful Lake Superior sunrise by Henry Roberts was published in the Duluth News Tribune. Dick Fischer is to be honored for “Lifetime Achievement” at the Depot Foundation’s Circle of Friends dinner. In addition to an imposed fine to the honoree, Bill Gravelle, who serves as Vice Chair of the Depot Foundation, along with Rob Hofmann, who serves as Chair of the Depot Foundation, and board member Karol Sowers were each fined. As many Rotarians enjoy seasonal grouse hunting, all who partake were asked to step up and “kick the can”. Finally, we showed our gratitude for the help of numerous Junior Rotarians who assisted in distributing roses last week with a round of applause.

Jena Evans, Roni Salo and Jr. Rotarian Cabrilla Francis

Rotary Rose Sale Chair Matt Rosendahl expressed his thanks to all Rotarians for their extraordinary efforts during the 2017 Rose Sale campaign. He expressed special thanks to Rose Sales veterans Chuck Chairs and Gary Melander for their many hours of work that helped to make this campaign a great success. Tabulations are still underway, so our final total will be known soon. One of our newest Rotarians Tom Eling was honored as the inaugural “Rookie of the Year” with a certificate – not suitable for framing. A date for Dave McLean’s gathering for Rotarians who sold 60 or more dozen will be scheduled in the future.

President Tricia Bunten introduced a short Rotary Video “Drop to Zero” as a primer for Rotary’s 5^th Annual World Polio Day live-streaming event on Tuesday, October 24^th at 4:30 pm CST. The event will be co-hosted with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Rotary will stream live from the Gates Foundation headquarters in Seattle. This event will bring together more than 50,000 viewers around the world. To view the event please visit www.endpolio.org.

Chair of the Day Mark Eckman, Speaker John Crosson and Tricia Bunten

Great Rotary programs cover topics that are as timely as they are interesting, and today’s program was certainly both. Our program, “The Health Care Dilemma – The Single-Payer Option” was brought to us by Chair of the Day Mark Eckman who introduced us to Dr. John Crosson. Dr. Crosson has an extensive background as a practitioner and medical educator serving in leadership roles at Hennepin County Medical Center and as an instructor at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. The thesis of his presentation was presenting a solution to rising health care costs and a dysfunctional health care system by instituting a system in which health care providers are paid for their services by government rather than private insurers. Dr. Crosson stated that he is a member of the Minnesota-based “Physicians for a National Health Program” - a group that advocates for health care for everyone at affordable rates. This group believes that a single-payer system is the best model to achieve equity. He said that US health care has the highest percentage – 18% of GNP – more than twice the expenditure than any developed country in the world! According to Dr. Crosson, the root cause of this extraordinary expenditure is the “dysfunctional business model” that the health care delivery system has followed since WWII. The for-profit pharmaceutical companies, health care insurance companies and hospitals take 30% of every dollar spent on administration fees, as opposed to the 2-3% that Medicare charges. And these expenses are only increasing. The discussion of single-payer systems has been going on for years, and in Minnesota, State Senator John Marty (DFL District 66) authored a bill SF 219 that intends to deliver health care as good or better than the Federal Medicare single-payer model. The intention of this legislation is to create a state-based universal health care program that all citizens and employers pay into, at a yet to be determined “ability to pay” calculation. The State of Minnesota then becomes the sole insurer negotiating with health care providers to secure the lowest costs possible. Accordingly, individuals could save $3,500 annually while employers could save $1,300. Under this model, administration costs could be cut by $7 to $10 billion, according to Dr. Crosson. For those interested in learning more about this debate, Dr. Crosson recommended a book by Dr. Elizabeth Rosenthal An American Sickness.