There were 33 members in attendance on August 27. There were no guests. Joe Pellus, Winnetka’s Deputy Chief of Police was the village’s corporate member representative.

President John Thomas announce that he was bringing back the “Moment to Shine” where a member was given a few minutes to tell us about himself or his business. Bernie Michna was the chosen one this week. He told us that he was a real estate attorney and the part owner of a real estate title company. He explained what title insurance is and its value to the homebuyer.

Donna, our caterer, told us that she was looking for a new provider of bread for our lunches as her supplier had closed his shop.

John Thomas asked members to check the weekly email bulletin that is sent to all of the members as it lists the meeting assignments for the current week as well as the following three weeks. If you cannot be in attendance when you are assigned a task for the meeting it is your responsibility to get a substitute. There are four tasks assigned each week - Greeter, Thought of the Day, Dig ‘n Grin and Sgt. At Arms.

John, who is a member of Winnetka’s Plan Commission, told the members that a decision on the Winnetka One project for the old Fell property was likely to be made by the end of September.

Club announcements: Marie Kuipers was recently married to Dr. Alan Zablocki, an astrophysicists at the University of Chicago and one of our speakers this spring. John Thomas celebrated a big birthday last weekend.

This week’s speaker was a former Winnetka Rotarian, Sherre Cullen, who is currently the Director of Development of Urban Gateways. Sherre has been with Urban Gateways for 6 ½ years, following similar work at the Music Institute in Winnetka and the Writers Theater in Glencoe. Urban Gateways delivers high-quality and accessible arts experience to the underprivileged children in Chicago. In 1961, Jessie Woods and a group of her friends founded Urban Gateways to address the lack of artistic exposure in Chicago-area schools, especially those in the inner-city.

She started by taking students to cultural events in the downtown area. That led to bringing visiting artists of all types to these schools and park district after school programs. Urban Gateway’s visiting artists now include artists in the visual arts, dance, theater, music as well as the digital media.

Sherre showed a video that demonstrated the type of programs the organization sponsors. She also related stories of how impactful the arts can be to children and adults in expressing some of their inner feelings. The idea is that it supplements the academic program and enhances learning in children. Those of us living on the North Shore take the arts for granted as most of our schools have a rich curriculum in the arts and parents expose their children to the arts at a young age. Supporting Urban Gateways is our opportunity to help provide experiences in the arts to children who do not have the rich opportunities our kids have. Their programs have a positive influence on children wanting to go to school. Sherre related the story of a quiet young boy who drew a picture of a boot and some stick figures. When he was asked to explain his picture he revealed for the first time that his family was being evicted from his home. Staff and others rallied around the family so that they have adequate housing. This happened because of the boy being able to express what was happening through his art, which he had not previously been able to verbalize.

Urban Gateways has a budget of $2.5 million yet there is always a need for financial support as they serve over 200 Chicago schools. Sherre said that her organization is always looking for good board members who believe in their mission. (Writer’s note: This might be a good organization to support with a grant from our foundation!)

Twenty-eight members were in attendance.  There were two guests, visiting Rotarian Tom Trapp from Northbrook and, Akkara Srauy an Administrative Fellow at Rush Hospital who accompanied our speaker Peter Butler.

David Birkenstein announced that there would be a meeting of the membership committee on Thursday, August 30 at 11:00 a.m. in the conference room on the second floor of the Community House.  All members are invited to attend and contribute their ideas on how to increase our membership.

Heidi Sibert told the club members to mark March 12th on their calendars as the day our club will be packing food for the Kids Against Hunger program.  More announcements will be forthcoming, as she and her committee will be soliciting sponsors and workers for this annual event.

Our club celebrated the birthdays of David Birkenstein and Randy Reeves as well as the Rotary anniversaries of Sam Badger and Kristen Leahy who celebrated their 2nd year as members of our club.

John Stone brought back an old tradition of a quiz for Dig ‘n Grin.  He gave clubs to the team name for all of the NFL teams.  There were only a couple of teams that gave the members some pause.

The speaker for the day was Peter Butler who spent his youth in Winnetka.  He is the current President and CEO for the Rush University Medical Center.  He has been at Rush for over 10 years and he has spent over 30 years in hospital administration and is a nationally recognized health care administrator.  He has served on a presidential advisory committee dealing with the impact of the Affordable Care Act.

Peter showed several charts that traced health care costs.  He pointed out that these costs were 7% of the nation’s GDP in 1972 and they rose to 17% in 2012.  We were told that health care costs have plateaued and may have slightly declined in recent years.  Peter pointed out that in 1970 it took 4.5 workers to support each recipient of Medicare and that number will likely drop to 2.5 workers per Medicare recipient by 2050.  

The Affordable Care Act has reduced the pool of uninsured Americans by one-third as 17 million more persons have insurance today.  Approximately half of the newly insured are due to the newly establish health exchanges and half are due to Medicaid expansion.  Employer-based insurance programs cover about one-third of the insured.  In Illinois Medicaid covers one-fourth of the population.

Peter said that the system is working reasonably well as hospitals cannot charge as much as they did previously but that loss is made up by the fact that more hospital patients are covered by insurance so the hospital have fewer non-paying patients.  He also said that there is a system of penalties and bonuses based on the hospitals performance.  More readmissions result in penalties, reduction in payments.   Overall Peter feels that most hospitals are agreeable to the new system.  He also said that it is highly unlikely that any future congress will be able to repeal the ACA.

Wes Baumann and Keith Reed are looking for one or two more members to share with the writing of the weekly Meeting Recaps.  With three or four persons handling this responsibility the task becomes far less onerous. If you are willing to become a scribe for our Rotary Club please contact Wes Baumann at wab445@comcast.net or Keith Reed at keithreed9@yahoo.com.