Thoughts for the Day, April 27, 2026: Happy Birthday to my son Christopher (today) and my sister Nancy Berge (yesterday)

Executive Director Dr. Ray Rion’s letter on Packard Health

I have dedicated nearly 50 years to making sure the uninsured and underserved have access to healthcare. In the last fifteen years, Packard Health in Washtenaw County has been a major focus of my time and energy. I have served as the Interim Executive Director, Board member, Treasurer of the Board, and a member of the Finance Committee.

In the last fifteen years, Packard went from a health clinic on the verge of closing to a Federal Qualified Health Center that in 2025 provided 48,775 primary care visits, 10,961 behavioral health visits, 6,667 substance use disorder visits, filled 45,429 prescriptions at its inhouse pharmacy, distributed $2,450 in gas cards to its patients, provided $1,020 bus tokens to its patients, provided 403 rides to its patients and served 5,044 individuals at its food pantries. It did this while providing high quality patient care and while receiving a 91% patient satisfaction score.

Packard health is making a difference in the Washtenaw County community by providing high quality patient care. It is not just for the underserved and uninsured, it is for all patients. Many of its patients include former high-level administrators at U of M and St. Joes who love the quality of care as well as the timely access to primary care that the major health centers struggle to provide.

Unlike most primary care centers, it also provides in-house mental health services by employed mental health providers. Recently, it created its own in-house pharmacy, where patients can have their prescriptions filled on site.

Like all primary care providers, Packard is facing major problems moving forward as the nation’s political will to provide health care for the underserved and uninsured has lessened. The passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill” last year is only going to make it worse.

I want to share a letter that Dr. Ray Rion, Executive Director, has written to the Packard community. It is titled “Standing Firm for Our Community”

Dear Friends and Partners of Packard Health,

As I reflect on the past year, I am proud of what our team has accomplished, and clear-eyed about the challenges ahead. The healthcare landscape in our region is shifting in ways that will profoundly affect the people we serve, and I want to share both the obstacles we face and the steps we are taking to meet them.

We are currently facing the most serious degradation to healthcare access in our community since before the Affordable Care Act.

The ACA transformed coverage-Michigan’s uninsured rate fell from 13% before ACA to 5%. Unfortunately, the policy changes now underway have drastically reversed that progress.

The scale of reversal is sobering. In the last three years, over 500,000 Michiganders have lost Medicaid coverage, with 100,000 losing coverage in the last 12 months. Cuts to Marketplace subsidies are projected to leave 200,000 Michigan residents without ACA coverage in 2026, and proposed Medicaid work requirements could leave another 240,000 without coverage in 2027. For our county (Washtenaw), that means an estimated 15,000 of our neighbors will potentially become uninsured within the coming months. These are not abstractions-they are real people who depend on access to care to live healthy stable lives.

Packard will not stand on the sidelines.

We have proactively adjusted our budget to anticipate the impact of insurance cuts. We are actively pursuing additional grant funding and individual donations to sustain and expand our care for uninsured patients. And we are expanding access to patient service representatives who can help community members navigate Medicaid redeterminations-because bureaucratic barriers and administrative inconvenience should never stand between a patient and coverage.

We are also investing in the future. We expanded our addiction treatment services with the OPEN Warmline, launched a community-based program addressing the specific mental health needs of young Black men and boys, added psychiatric services for pediatric and adolescent patients, and we have recently started a new program to bring primary care directly to homebound patients.

The challenges ahead are real, but Packard Health has never shied away from hard times. We have stood firm for our community before, and we will do so again, because serving those who need us most is not just our mission - It is who we are.

Thank you for your continued trust and support-it is because of partners like you that we can face these challenges with confidence and compassion.

With gratitude,

Raymond Rion, MD.

Executive Director.

For more information on Packard Health please visit, www.packardhealth.org

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Breaking the 2-hour barrier in the London Marathon.

For elite marathon runners, breaking the 2-hour barrier for 26.2 miles was a goal similar to the four-minute mile prior to Roger Bannister breaking it on May 6, 1954. Many came close but no one could break it.

Yesterday, the two-hour barrier was obliterated by two runners as Sabastian Sawe of Kenya won the London Marathon in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds, bettering the previous men’s world record by an astonishing 65 seconds. He beat Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha, who was running his first marathon and finished in 1:59.41.

To run a marathon in that time means Sawe was running at an average speed of 13.15 MPH. He averaged 4 minutes and 33 seconds per mile, 2 minutes and 16 seconds per half mile, and 1 minute and 8 seconds per quarter mile.

And I think averaging 13.1 MPH on my bike for 10 miles is pushing it.

Sawe and Kejeicha get my Orchid of the Day.

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Freedom of information is under duress, and it is only going to get worse

In the coming weeks, I plan on expressing my concerns about where this country (and the world) is heading as it relates to information, how it is being controlled, and how we are being manipulated.

The recent merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery and Peter Thiel’s $400 billion surveillance empire scare the hell out of me.

Big Brother is watching every move we make through our phones, computers, GPS in our cars, our in-home devices, our credit card spending, etc., etc.

Examples are hitting us right in the face if we are paying attention. Yesterday, I texted a person that I just added to my contacts on my phone. Within an hour, the person popped up on my Facebook feed as someone I should friend. Prior to yesterday, this person never showed on any of my Facebook feeds.

On Friday, I got into my car to go to dinner at the Side Door and the GPS in our car gave us directions to the side door without us doing anything.

More to come in future blogs.

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Pistons

The Pistons are in a near must win situation in their game tonight against the Orlando Magic who have a 2-1 lead over the Pistons in the best of seven series. If the Pistons lose tonight, they will have to win the remaining three games, otherwise their season is toast.

The Pistons, starting with their all-pro point guard Cade Cunningham, were careless with the ball on Saturday. Cade had 9 of the team’s 24 turnovers which led to 24 Orlando points.

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Spencer Torkelson

Last week at this time, the Tiger fan base was calling for the benching of Tiger first baseman Spencer Torkelson because he has been in a horrendous slump since the beginning of the season. The fans may have been impatient with Tork, but his manager and his teammates were not. They saw how hard Tork was working before and after games. They saw the little things that were starting to show progress (like hitting toward the opposite field) They knew it was only a matter of time.

On Wednesday Tork hit his first home run of the season. On Thursday he hit his second, which was a walk-off game winner. On Friday, he hit his third. On Saturday, he hit his fourth. On Sunday he hit his fifth.

His five home runs in five successive games tie a franchise record. Hopefully, he can break the record on Tuesday. Tork gets my Second Orchid of the Day

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Contact your Congressperson

Contact your congressman by following these easy steps This can be done in a few easy steps.

Step 1: find your congressman by clicking on this link, Find Your Representative | house.gov

Step 2: Put your zip code in the proper space.

Step 3: Click the button “find your representative””

Step 4: In the new page that comes up you will see a picture of your congressman. Click on your congressman’s name under the picture.

Step 5: In the new page that comes up, Click on Contact Me at the top of the page and then click on Email me.

Step 6: Fill out the information as required.

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Quote of the Day: “Because bureaucratic barriers and administrative inconvenience should never stand between a patient and coverage.” Dr. Ray Rion, See above story.

Orchid of the Day: Sabastian Sawe and Yomif Kejelcha for obliteration the 2-hour barrier in the London Marathon. See above article.

Second Orchid of the Day: Spencer Torkelson for a homerun in five successive games tying the Detroit Tiger record. See above article.

Onion of the Day: Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, Calif., came to the nation’s capital with the intention of carrying out a political assassination. He brought a pump-action shotgun, a .38-caliber handgun and three knives, officials said. Normally, I do not give an onion on the days I give two orchids but today is an exception.

Question of the Day: What goes on in the mind of someone like Cole Tomal Allen?

Lyrics of the Day: People always told me, “Be careful of what you do
And don’t go around breaking young girls’ hearts” (hee-hee)
And mother always told me, “Be careful of who you love
And be careful of what you do (oh-oh)
‘Cause the lie becomes the truth” (oh-oh), hey-ey

Lyrics of the Day for April 22, 2026. Mr. Tanner by Harry Chapin

Video of the Day: Very entertaining with great music.

Michael | Official Trailer