Many thanks to Mr. Timothy Moore for providing our program last Tuesday.
President Paula Brahan presided over the meeting. Thanks to Freddy Walter who gave the invocation and to Mary Ariail who led us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Thanks to Wes Brooks and Phillip Carter for serving as our greeters today.
Mike Ratliff thanked those who assisted with today’s meeting and also thanked Wes and Shane Germany for making meeting volunteer sign-up so easy through Club Runner. He encouraged everyone to pick their date to volunteer.
Erik Graham is today’s poker winner.
Jaclyn Adams thanked those who volunteered earlier this week to assist with the Project Homeless Connect. Out of a total of 124 volunteers, 11 were Rotarians. Of the 11 Rotarians, 5 were new members. The group served 75 homeless individuals during the event. Jaclyn says of all the Rotary projects she’s been involved with over the past 9 years, this was the most rewarding experience for her. Tracey Fowler reported that a Rapid Response Team has been put together to go into the woods twice monthly to check on the homeless. Every Rotarian is encouraged to assist when/if they can.
Amber Chancelor then introduced today’s guest speaker, Timothy Moore. Mr. Moore is President and CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Association.
“What’s Happening to Healthcare and Who is Running It” was the focus of Tim’s presentation. He noted that Mississippi is one of the states that decided not to expand the Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act. Having made that decision he says our state has lost billions of dollars in Medicaid reimbursements from the federal government over the past few years.
The nati9onal per-member per-month margin for health insurance has gone from $38.32 to $92.84 in 2016. Much of the cost for health care is administrative costs which have increased sharply under the ACA. Mr. Moore says the numbers reflect that those who have gained the most are the Managed Care providers. Those companies have seen as much as a 300% increase in their profit margins over the last five years. United Health Care is at the top of the list at 300%. Meantime, the S & P 500 has increased to 92% during the same time. And, incidentally, the money that is spent on taking care of patients has steadily decreased. This leaves a large pool of uncompensated medical care in our state which is the least healthy state in the union.
Twenty-five percent of Mississippians receive Medicaid. Fifty percent of the state’s children received Medicaid CHIP assistance. Medicaid enrollment is up 6.65% during the last five years. Child enrollment is up 16%.
Hospitals and doctors put together a Provider Managed Care program recently. It is fully operational except the state has yet to allow that system to receive Medicaid reimbursements. They will continue to work with the state legislature to try and change those position in the coming months.
Timothy doesn’t see much hope that the United States Congress can come together to fix these and other problems. He says those politicians are now completely polarized and none of them will reach across the aisle and work with their fellow representatives and senators.
To learn more visit their website at http://mhanet.org/.
Paula thanked our speaker today and with no other business or announcements she adjourned the meeting with our motto, “Service Above Self.”