Guests: Sandor Bali (speaker, guest, former Rotarian), Robert Bessel (Canton Main Street Project), Leslie Hill (First Selectman, Canton)
Visiting Rotarians: None
Happy Dollars: $$$$$$
Fines: None
Raffle: None
Newly Inducted Member: Alicia Canning
Birthdays
Sue Budde was excited to celebrate her birthday as a 5-year member of Rotary. She is still working for the Canton Chamber of Commerce and is proud to have been a founding member of Dogstar Rescue, and supports their work, though she is less involved than she once was. Sue enjoys the warm and welcoming group that Rotary is, and thanked Scott Nardozzi for sponsoring her membership. In closing, she presented a contribution to the Rotary Foundation in recognition of all the good that Rotary does.
Happy Dollars
Evan Cooper was happy to be sitting at a table of all men, and to see Paul Mikkelson back among us.
Capri Frank was glad to be sitting with what she characterized as "cool people", glad to see that Paul is back, and glad to wish Sue Budde a happy birthday. She also shared with Jolly that her heart is with her in response to the significant personal loss Jolly suffered on her most recent trip to Uganda.
Jolly Lux was happy to be back home and safe after her recent trip to Uganda. She continued by noting how glad she is to see Paul back among us. Paul has been in her thoughts and prayers. She also noted Nancy Nation's presence and expressed gratitude for that as well. She continued by explaining that she had, had a great and productive trip to Uganda, but that it was marred by tragedy when on July 8th, three of her colleagues were killed in car accidents there, including one of her program managers. On a lighter note she met with the Rotary District Governor for District 911 and brought back their banner for our archive.
Paul Mikkelson reported it was great to be back but is still in a bit of a fog after all he's been through. He expressed his gratitude for Hartford Hospital, for the friendship of Nancy and Craig Nation and for our Rotary Club. He thanked an anonymous but close Rotarian for the bear and balloon gift he received while hospitalized as well as the many members who sent emails, texts, cards and made telephone calls to him. He is grateful for his wife and for the support of St. Mary's church, at which he is a parishioner. He expressed how shocking it has been for him to accept that he cannot return to cycling which has been such a big part of his life for many years. Paul made clear just how much it meant to him that everyone looked out for him, and made sure he knew how much they cared, to the degree that they did. Said Paul, "That was huge. Thanks very much!"
Tom Voorhees was happy to see Paul back and congratulated Sue on her birthday. Tongue in cheek, Tom also reported that the "no more than 50#, mildly active young dog" adopted from Sue's group has since grown up to become a 75# energetic athlete. Tom went on to verbally celebrate the diversity of the species we know as "dog" and how surprising the results of their genetic predispositions can be.
Don Rossler reported that he, his wife nancy and his boys just returned from an almost month-long trip to Alaska and British Columbia.
Try as he might, Don was also unable to locate a Rotary club in those climes at which he might have completed a make up. He is glad to be back. He reported those destinations as absolutely gorgeous with the only downside being his son's disappointment in failing to catch a salmon. They may have to go back.
Kevin Case, a former Rotarian and a guest today, was grateful for the welcoming reception he has received at this morning's meeting. Kevin hopes to rejoin and stated that he has missed being a part of the group.
Don Bonner was happy to finally present to Paul some items that were awarded to him at the President's Installation Dinner, which he had missed due to his illness. A logo-ed T-shirt from his riding club and a Rotary gym bag were among them.
Announcements
Kathleen Parr reported she still has plenty of forms for enrolling golfers, sponsors and advertisers in support of our golf tournament.
President Bonner asked for a show of hands regarding the possibility of shifting the club to using a more modern and user friendly form of name badge. The new badges are made of a strong plastic, are engraved, include a Rotary emblem and have a magnetic rather than a pin type mechanism of attachment. At $7.20 per badge, cost to members, Don noted they are a bargain, and won't ruin clothing as pins may do, nor require a pocket to attach to, as the older type badges do. They are more suitable for many women's clothing styles as well. Many members raised their hands in agreement with the idea.
Dale Bronson reminded members that the FAVARH Support Committee meets on the 4th Friday of every month, and would meet today.
Nancy Nation reminded members that just because Larry Sullivan was absent, they cannot relax their efforts to build the golf tournament. Said Nancy, "Get your golfers before the $180.00 discounted price expires and the price goes up. Note also that the smaller Route 44 businesses are often inundated with charitable requests and that larger, sometimes hidden businesses should also be approached. "The success of our fundraising is up to each on of us."
Awards, Donations, etc.
Gary Roman introduced Leslee Hill, First Selectman of the Town of Canton, who along with the Board of Selectmen, initiated a new community program. Originally planned as an "Opioid Epidemic Response Program", it was quickly broadened to focus more generally on mental health. The program was not budgeted and therefore it was necessary to raise private funds to create it and local charities were approached to do so. On behalf of the Rotary Club of Avon-Canton, Gary presented a check for $300.00 to Leslee in support of this program. Gary then introduced Leslee, who explained the program in more depth.
Leslee thanked Rotarians for "their incredible support for this program." Originally informed about the impact of the opioid epidemic in our area by officials of the Farmington Valley Health District. This led to Leslee seeking to answer the question: "What does a mentally healthy community look like?"
Working with the Canton Public School Administration, the Canton Police Department, the Canton Main Street Project and other stakeholders the project seeks to: raise awareness of what it takes to live a mentally healthy lifestyle and to de-stigmatize mental illness, which enables people to seek help free of the fear of shame. A mental health community calendar was developed, one which facilitated a different monthly mental health focus. These include: June's focus on a healthy diet, July's focus on connecting with other members of the community and September's focus as Suicide Prevention Month. Reiterating that these activities were not included in the municipal budget, Leslee thanked Rotary, the Canton Chamber of Commerce and the Canton Main Street Project for their financial support.
Following Leslee's comments, Robert Bessel, representing the Canton Main Street Project, presented Leslee with an additional check for $300.00 towards Canton's mental health project.
Presentation
Sandor "Sandy" Bali
One Pharmacist's Point of View on the American Health Insurance Debate
Bill Barnes introduced our speaker, Sandor "Sandy" Bali, a former member of our club, former owner of Arrow Drug in Canton Village and who is currently employed at the CVS Pharmacy in Canton. Sandy is a Connecticut licensed pharmacist who wished to communicate his views about the current debate on health insurance, its current relationship to the delivery of medical care to individuals and the political struggle to re-determine how that medical care is delivered and paid for in today's America.
Sandy opened by noting that the "respect and love that is in this room is palpable." He went on to characterize our Club as "a microcosm of everything good in our society." He opined that the health care system is broken, then clearly tongue in cheek, noted it's easy to avoid becoming involved with it by "not getting sick." He continued, noting that at one time America had the best system in the world, describing it as a "warranty system", in which there was an implied promise: "when one 'breaks down', we will fix you." He noted that such a system was always incomplete for its lack of attention to mental health, and referenced Paul's situation of coming to terms with being unable to bicycle after surviving a very serious illness. "Where is the mental health system to help him deal with that?",Sandy asked.
Sandy went on to describe the evolution of American medicine. He noted that in 1948, the World Health Organization (WHO) defined health as more than just the absence of disease. He shared a personal story regarding his daughter Annie, who last year at age 29, was discovered to have Stage 2 breast cancer, and who is now, thanks to the great medical care she received, doing well. Still, Sandy noted, after Annie completed her chemotherapy, surgery and radiation treatments, she was treated in a way that conveyed "after it's over, it was 'goodbye, see you in 6 months for the next MRI." There was little professional, emotional support for her during that period and he has thus concluded that a "warranty system" is "not right."
Referencing the late Peg Perry, former Canton librarian and sister of the late actress Katherine Hepburn, Sandy quoted Peg as having said, "G-d d__mit, my father was right" in his prediction about what medical insurance would eventually do to American medicine. Peg Perry's father was the late, prominent physician Dr. Thomas Hepburn who had been prescient in his view of the changes coming to American medicine so many years ago. In 1932, Dr. Hepburn, while discussing the then still new idea of health insurance and the introduction of the first Blue Cross/Blue Shield health plan into Connecticut, was reported to have noted at his family's dinner table, "Children, it's the beginning of the end of our health care system."
Sandy opined that "maybe we'd be better off without health insurance, but we have it now and its not going away." Health insurance began in the 1930's with a health benefit plan for a Chicago teacher's union. During World War 2, a nationwide wage freeze was accompanied by employee benefits as a sort of compensating factor for level wages, despite any inflationary pressures. In the 1970's there were still no prescription drug benefits, patients were entirely self-pay and drugs were generally inexpensive. By the 1980s and into the 1990s we were intentionally transformed from a fee-for-service system into a managed care system. This transition also affected pharmacies as "pharmacy business management" programs, "PBM"s, were instituted. These profit-maximizing business systems added complexity and increased costs across the board. Accompanying this transition, was the rise of generic drugs, now representing 80% of all drugs sold, and which have undergone a large increase in their retail prices. Generics are cheaper to purchase wholesale and therefore more profitable for pharmacies, allowing larger margins than the more costly wholesale prices of name brands.
This generic retail price inflation is perhaps best understood through the alleged Epi-pen price gouging incident. After becoming a generic product, the cost of an Epi-pen rose from approximately $30.00 each to $648.00 each, a 21.6 fold increase, without apparent reason. After this scandal became public knowledge, the manufacturer's CEO, was called to testify before Congress. He was asked why his top executives were making $300,000,000.00 salaries while a simple, generic product's price had been obscenely inflated. He had no answer, and in Sandy's words, "That's just the tip of the iceberg." Another example of medication pricing abuse Sandy provided was that of a name brand, topical therapeutic diaper rash cream composed of 3 common and very inexpensive ingredients. The name brand blend is sold for $186.00 a tube, whereas purchasing the three ingredients as separate tubes of cream or ointment is just pennies on the dollar.
Sandy noted that Americans spend $3 trillion dollars ($3,000,000,000.00) annually on medical care now, and that he believes some form of single payer system would be preferable. The uninsured poor use hospital emergency departments as outpatient clinics for both minor acute or chronic disease management and hospitals are forbidden by law from turning people away, even when they cannot pay, or when they present with non-emergent illness. This also degrades emergency care for all by using up valuable resources and physician time for non-emergent illness. Further, large corporations that have traditionally provided medical care benefits to employees are now expending more than 20% of their annual budgets on those benefits, up from a one time 5% annually, and are losing their business competitiveness in the process.
Sandy believes the idea of a single payer system, essentially a government-operated medical reimbursement program for all, is starting to take hold among the public and policy makers. He believes America is not doing medical care well because of the partly private, partly public system we have now. He believes many countries are doing this better, and he provided the example of the Dutch single payer system, which he has some knowledge of from his regular trips to Aruba over a number of years. Aruba is a former Dutch colony, still under Netherlands sovereignty and administration. He note that the Dutch "are all skinny, beautiful and healthy."
He also described the Danish system in which all citizens of Denmark pay high taxes but view them as the cost of collective well being. The government pays all costs for health care, as well as for education through college for all. Sandy stated that "healthy people are productive and therefore happy." His opinion is that "we are not that happy."
In emphasizing his views, Sandy interprets comments made by Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini as also being in favor of a single payer system for medical care. As published in the Washington DC newspaper, "The Hill", Mr. Bertolini's position was described as: " The CEO of health insurer Aetna told employees in a private meeting that 'Single-payer, I think we should have that debate as a nation.'Mark Bertolini reportedly said this, after being asked about the possibility of the GOP’s ObamaCare repeal plan paving the way for a single-payer system." This private exchange occurred in the context of discussing the now openly acknowledged, abject failure of the ironically named "Affordable Care Act", to accomplish any of its goals: to make medical care more widely available to the poor and to lessen its cost for everyone.
In closing Sandy said "We can't keep it the way it is", and again referred to the prescient Dr. Thomas Hepburn's dinner table comments from many years earlier, which described health insurance as the beginning of the end of the American medical care system.
Special Announcements
NEW MEMBER!
Scott Nardozzi re-introduced the about-to-be inducted Rotarian Alicia Canning and summarized her biography. Alicia was born in Rhode Island and attended Rhode Island Junior College and Hamburger University. Today she lives in Canton, where she recently retired from business, having owned the Canton McDonald's restaurant for a number of years. Alicia has three daughters, with one living in Bristol, one in Canton and one in South Africa. Between them, they have blessed Alicia with 7 grandchildren. At the conclusion of Scott's introduction, President Bonner began the induction ceremony.
Speaking sequentially, Don, Scott, Sue, Len and Diana and again Don, recited the ancient and mysterious Rotarian induction ritual which admonishes all members to fully participate in Rotary activities, to build their individual and the club's fellowship, and to become an integral part of who we are, and what we do.
Thereafter Alicia was declared a Rotarian and presented with her membership certificate, identification badge and pin, which Len Dunstan affixed to her collar. Following this, Alicia made brief comments, saying: "It is a privilege to be here and I am looking forward to meeting everyone and getting involved in our community service. Thank you."
Welcome Alicia!
Mail Bag
Several thank you letters were received however the very full meeting schedule required they be reported at next week's meeting!
Photo Credits
Club meeting photographs courtesy of Phil Worley, unless otherwise indicated.
Editors Notes
Submission Deadline: Members are kindly encouraged to submit all materials for each week's Early Riser as quickly as possible. Please note that some editions may be published and distributed as early as the Saturday following our meetings, and during those weeks further contributions to the Early Riser will be included in the subsequent week's edition.
“The Four-Way Test of the things we think, say or do”:
1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all Concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
