Last week’s speaker was a 29-year-old man, Ben Rubenstein, who led us through his remarkable saga of coping with bone cancer during the past 14 years. His tool has been developing a “Superman Complex”, a mind-set to detach and rise above the trauma of treatment for so many years. As a high school sophomore, Ben collapsed while trying out for varsity tennis. Cancerous tumors were found in his bones. In spite of his local constant treatment, and his 100 days in Minnesota as a patient, Ben has earned an economics degree from the University of Virginia where no one knew about his cancer history. He now lives in Washington, has a job downtown, and has been well for several years.

Last week’s breakfast speaker was Ms. Julie Verratti, (left, with Kevin Flynn, Joe DiPietro & Nick Martinez), a deputy Associate Administrator of Field Operations at the U.S. Small Business Administration. One of their major operations during the next nine months is getting smaller businesses situated under the new Health Care Law, effective Jan. 1, 2014.

The magic number for the employer who must provide insurance is 50 fulltime employees. While some employers would like to provide insurance in any event, the choice of those with under 50 employees may lie ultimately with the cost of such a policy.

Julie Verratti pointed out that as of Jan. 1, 2014, many insurance market plans need to be launched and that ultimately the USA will have a National Health Plan like the one already in effect in Massachusetts.

Last week’s breakfast speaker was Mrs. Ritva Koukku-Ronde who reiterated her pleasure at being Finland’s first female ambassador to the U.S. She added that in her country of five million people, promoting women’s participation has been strong since the early 20th Century. In Parliament today, 9 of the 19 members are women. About 175 years ago, Finns and Swedes first came to Delaware. With humor, Ritva told us the Finns showed us how to build “block houses”. More seriously, one Finn signed our Declaration of Independence. Today, the Finns are busy building and maintaining their good relationships in Europe and abroad. They belong to the Eurozone but not to NATO. Their biggest “Together Fields” with other nations are security, water, health and life. They hope to expand their population a bit with higher echelon people such as doctors and scientists.

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