Dec 3, 2012

Meeting of the Rotary Club of Eureka
December 3, 2012



The flag salute was led by Past President Pat Folkins.  

 The invocation was given by Greg Williston.   

No visiting Rotarians or guests today.   

Moderate calisthenics were conducted with moderate enthusiasm.  Eric Bergel introduced Caroline Smullin from Eureka High Interact. They did a Hurricane Sandy fundraiser, and now are raising money for a school in Africa. Buy a candy cane mouse, $2.  Franco and Larissa are here! They saw some movies! They were good! Larissa's fundraising dinner for her Hawaii trip went well. Now she's got cookies! They both changed families and it seems to be ok.   

Birthdays and Anniversaries are in the book, congratulations to all. There was an empty seat at the head table. Fines were levied.   

Mindy Bussman announced a need for volunteers to pack for Backpacks for Kids.   

Alicia Cox got the Rotary Club work group featured in the paper. Well done.   

Gregg Gardiner discussed Toys for Tots and thanked Sheriff Downey for 95 toys from the Sheriff's department Christmas party.  Toys are still needed.   

The Logger Classic is coming up, and our club has supported it for 30 years.    

Ashley Deal from Rotaract came up. She has wine! $20 gets you a bottle and the money goes to an art scholarship in Michael Depew's name. I bought one, it's champagne.   

Chuck Ellsworth went to Texas and visited with Jim Hoff, who he joined for dinner with Governor Perry.  He then went and fought off fire ants and alligators. We flirted with politics for a minute but didn't end up kissing. No fine.   

Greg Foster was in Las Vegas last week. He met with Alaska Air about coming to Humboldt County. But, it was a vacation and he played some video poker. Max fine.  C

hristmas Party is the 15th, there. 

Spengler Raffle winners were Toys for Tots and Past President Don Leonard.   

Program 
Joyce Hanes from the Humboldt Senior Resource Center (http://www.humsenior.org/came to discuss the PACE program.  She thanked our club for supporting the resource center through the years. The Alzheimer's Center was completed in 2009, with our club's help.  They have a dedicated room named for our club.  The PACE program stands for Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly.  Healthcare for seniors has huge challenges.  Healthcare increases have been consuming all become gains for several years and costs are elected to triple by 2020.  Older adults use a disproportionate share of healthcare, and the PACE program tries to mitigate this expense.  PACE attempts to keep elderly people out of high cost skilled nursing facilities and keep them in their own homes.  People 55 and older, living in the service area, certified for nursing home care, and who can live alone safely in the community qualify.   

Medicare and Medical are combined to build a plan to take care of the patient with a capitated payment.  DICTIONARY: Capitation is a payment arrangement for health care service providers such as physicians or nurse practitioners. It pays a physician or group of physicians a set amount for each enrolled person assigned to them, per period of time, whether or not that person seeks care.  There are five PACE programs in California and ours would be the first rural one in the state. Our low number of eligible clients and high capital start-up costs are concerns, but the resource center believes they can overcome these hurdles. PACE is a preventative program and provides an umbrella coverage, where all services are provided through the capitated payments of all the clients participating in the program.  The program estimates they will need 100 participants by year five, which is the break even point.  PACE has the potential to provide cost savings to the community by keeping clients out of skilled nursing facilities.   

Joyce was thanked, the library book was signed, and the meeting ended on time.


Respectfully Submitted,
John Harper

No comments:

Post a Comment