At 12 noon, President Dawn called the meeting to order, and Rick Ingram led us in our patriotic song.  The membership then proceeded to recite the 4-way test.

Wendy Zielen’s brief, but insightful inspirational message came from a philosophy course she took in college. The lesson is a quote attributed to the philosopher Epictetus:  “It’s not what happens to you but how you react to it that matters.”

Don Devine led us in song today, accompanied by Maestro Rick Ingram.  

President Dawn and the club welcomed visitors from a local non-profit and local “celebrity chef” Angela Yang, who will be leading Rotarians in the upcoming dumpling-making event on February  7.   We also wished happy birthday to Mousumi Banerjee, Paul Glendon, Ebru Misirli Mansfield, Dan Balbach and Dennis Burke.

President Dawn also thanked this meeting’s helpers: Mary Avrakotos, Steve Kesler, Bryn Mickle, Tucker Rossmaessler, Rick Ingram, Mary Steffek-Blaske and Pattie Katcher.

Announcements

Remember to register for the District Conference if you are interested. Our winter Wine, Women & Song evening is coming up at the end of this month.  President Dawn encourages us all to read the article in this month’s Rotary magazine that is focused on the topic of First Aid for Mental Health and Epic Day.  There are planning meetings now for an Epic Day in our own community scheduled for the 3rd Saturday in May.  Stay tuned for more information.

Interested in joining the Community Allocations Committee?  If so, reach out to Marsha Chamberlain as the committee is currently looking for more members to assist with ‘helping kids succeed’ by way of helping with grant application reviews.  Grant applications were sent to 100 organizations in our community and are due at the end of February.  If you know of a group/entity that could benefit from one of our grants, have them check out our website and complete the online application.  Marsha is also asking for assistance with reviewing grant applications, which would require a minimal commitment of about 10 hours total of your time.  If interested, please contact Marsha.

WHP: Connecting people to health care

Norman Herbert then introduced today’s speaker, Jeremy Lapedis, Executive Director of the Washtenaw Health Project (WHP).  Lapedis talked about how WHP secures health care coverage and connects people to health care.

Jeremy began with an overview of health insurance in Washtenaw County. He  commented on how stressful it is to navigate the health insurance roller coaster and why coverage is so important to protect lives.  Before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2013 about 9% of our county residents were uninsured, compared to 3% in 2025. Most residents are insured through their employer, Medicaid, Medicare or the ACA Marketplace and what remains are about 11,000 residents without health insurance.  Of that, about ⅓ or 3,500 residents have coverage through the WHP.

The nonprofit WHP assists residents by getting them connected to health insurance and primary care via a managed partnership between our County, Trinity Health and Michigan Medicine.  Individuals are assisted by either enrolling in the Washtenaw Health Plan (if they aren’t eligible for other coverage) or by enrolling in other insurance plans such as Medicaid or the ACA Marketplace. Applying for Medicaid is challenging because of not so clear income requirements, confusing letters, proving eligibility timelines, etc.  One interesting stat that Jeremy provided was concerning the economic benefit to healthcare providers and a study by UM’s School of Public Health found that the WHP health insurance enrollment services generated $11 million in annual health system revenue (to Mich Medicine/Trinity).

Our speaker went on to review some of the changes coming to the ACA Marketplace with the passing of the H.R.1 federal bill.  Some changes include stricter verification rules, the expiration of an enhanced subsidy, immigrants who are at 100% or below the Federal Poverty Level will lose subsidy eligibility and an estimated 6000 Washtenaw County residents could lose Marketplace coverage due to combined changes.

In response, a ‘Washtenaw Care’ vision has been developed via a coordinated, cross-sector response to the health care threats resulting from the H.R.1 federal bill.  The Washtenaw Health Project is striving to get the word out to those in need, expand coverage through the Wash. Health Plan and provide a higher level of support with insurance ‘check-ups’ where residents can get assistance with plan enrollments and primary care access.  The cost for this effort is estimated to be between $2-4 million and we hope that our community is up to the challenge to meet this goal head on.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:27pm.