Leads & Introductions
Members introduced themselves and announced leads and thank you's. 

Member Spotlight
This week's spotlight is Joe Hesch.  Please keep this member top of mind this week for referrals.

Membership Update
Tim and Brad Green of All About Painting visited the group this morning as potential new members.  Tim, the self proclaimed younger, good looking brother, told the group about their company.  All About Painting does both commercial and residential painting, inside and out, new construction and repaint. 

Social Update
There was a happy hour last night.  Steve Chilton wants to know where everybody was!  The 7-8 members that showed up had a great time.  He also wants to know if there is any interest in ski trip.  Janice Jaicks is working on a Botanical Garden social event as well as a wine tasting event.

Financial Update
Nick Mawrenko will present a full disclosure of the MABE financials in a few weeks.

Meeting Schedule Update
Coming up...

• Speed-dating style meeting

• Guest speaker that will talk about freight

• Guest Event Day (April 16th - bring a guest/potential member!)

• Small table topics

• Meeting on nutrition - MABE Fitness Challenge (Erin advises eating a lot of bad stuff until this meeting!)

Open Discussion - Health Care Reform
There was plenty of discussion on this topic today.  Just a few points are recorded below...

• What it is today is likely far different from what it will become.  If anything, premiums will rise because of the additional requirements put on the insurance companies.  There is also a limit on profitability that insurance companies can make.  The numbers don't jive.

• Their current profitability is already a slim margin.  There is only one place to get the money and that is raised premiums.

•  We have 150 employees between our two companies so we will be impacted.  I just signed up for two seminars as I expect that phase in to be overwhelming. 

• A recent article highlighted a mismatch between the coverage/expense timeline and the revenue timeline.  

• I have heard a lot from both sides.  Nobody is talking the economics of this in terms of other mandatory insurance schemes (auto insurance, worker's compensation fund).  There are many types of mandatory insurances that we don't even consider.  The people that end up paying the coverage are not the ones that use it. 

• One of the problems in the insurance industry is that the policies are written by lawyers.  The language can be hard to interpret.  Simplification would be good.

• You don't have to buy auto insurance or workman's compensation.  You just don't drive or hire employees.  You have no choice with the health insurance plan.

• We spent a hole year talking about reform but did not talk about the problems that led to the need for reform.  Demographics - we are all getting older.  There is a shifting in cost from one pool to another (Medicare, private insurance).  Also, the increased use of technology leads to longer life for test after test and procedure after procedure.  Do we throw granny under the train?

• The system is broken and we need to do something.

• In the provision of medical services, it isn't what you bill...it's what you collect.

• It is like a job having to constantly shop for insurance to get the best rates.

• You can't shop around if you have a pre-existing condition which can include anything.

• Pre-existing conditions don't apply in larger groups.

• If you fall into an older age bracket, regardless of claims history, you will see a large increase.

Buddy Lunch Pairings Reminder
Lunches are to be completed by April 15th.  On Friday April 16th we will have another Guest Event Day where members will be asked to give a brief Buddy Lunch report.

• Stacy Hyder - Sandro Menasci - Joe Hesch

• Lynn Schmelzer - Phyllis Prater - Andrew Jensen

• Nick Mawrenko - Denver Johnson - Carole Weishaar

• Chris Curran - Dave Lathrop - Joe Burr

• Guy Sawyer - Jake Ulrich - Dave Crissman

• Bill LaLonde - Jim Bache - Bob Busch

• Fred Vandervort - Joe Zingale - Mark Menasci

• Erin LaGrassa - Don Ellis - Bob Becker

• Ryan Bohlander - Roman Okonowski - Melissa Matthews

• Steve Chilton - Herb Stokes - Janice Jaicks - Althea Bussert