Mike Kloehn announced the results of the March Madness basketball pool. Stan Turney and Jeff Sims tied for first place. Jeff Shields came in third. $65 went to the club.
Joe Mahon passed around the sign-up sheet for attending the March 4th baseball game between AZ and Oregon. Guests are welcome. Refreshments start at 4:00 pm and the game starts at 6:00.
Jim Bunker attended the district 4-Way Speech Contest with our contestant Sarah Chambers. Sarah who is a freshman didn’t win but did well considering that she was competing against older students, mostly seniors.
Mike Lavor gave an update on how the 8th Grade breakfast is coming along. $35,900 in scholarships will be given out this year. The two winners from Mountain View HS will not be able to attend because of an examination conflict but they will be honored at a high school award ceremony. Doug has confirmed with the keynote speaker.
Willis reported that the raffle proceeds were $15,950. He asked that the members who sold winning tickets please deliver the prizes to the winners.
Robert Dean MD, an ENT specialist and one of the founders of Urgent Specialists, spoke about the rising cost of healthcare. Ideally, we want to improve outcomes and decrease costs. He identifies several problems:
Diagnostic errors result in increased cost down the line.
136 million ER visits and 27% could be avoided.
Pharmacy Benefit Managers and Group Purchasing Organizations make a profit of $250 billion a year.
Hospital consolidations result in increases cost with many more administrators than providers.
Corporate involvement.
Healthcare in the U.S. costs $3.5 trillion a year which is 28% of the GDP. Dr. Dean believes a complete overhaul of the system is the only way to reduce costs.