The White House Office of Creative Affairs

My name is John Stanton and I think we can address the problem of Renewing Global Leadership by doing this:

Stop acting like movie stars and start acting like somebody who needs the money. We have become entirely too arrogant for our own good. We need to get over ourselves and start to realize that there are other countries out there who do what we do and do it a whole lot better.

We have become masters at doing just enough to get by. The result is that we have lost our leadership role in dozens of industries because our products are no longer good enough to be leaders in their respective fields.

The government needs to become cheerleaders for the return of quality to American-made products. They need to be the symbol of “Job well done,” rather than “Least common denominator.

My idea is to make “Made In America” mean something once again.

My name is Debra Smithfield and I think we can address the problem of Ethics by doing this:

Everybody knows that Congress is bought and sold by corporate America. Why don’t we just let the companies sponsor legislation like they do sporting events. Like, “This bill to cut down on the level of allowable PCBs in river water is sponsored by General Electric. It will be known as the GE Clean Water Act.”

My name is Mary Baum, and I think we can address the problem of renewing global leadership by finishing the job of building out our nation’s broadband internet connections, so every American, including in rural areas, has high-speed access at a reasonable price:

It’s hard for me to see how the US can lead the world in all the areas we need to when our internet access is so spotty and slow. We simply must have access that covers the entire country – including every rural address – at speeds that start where cable and fast DSL modems are now and increase from there. We should also have wireless access along the interstate highways and on mass transit.

From what I read, we are now 15th in the world in speed and access and falling fast, and it’s no wonder, when the product comes from a duopoly of phone and cable companies. For them, full-speed internet, and the applications it supports, are a direct threat to their traditional business models – not to mention the copper wires and coaxial cables they’ve poured so many billions into maintaining all these decades.

It’s understandable that those entities would put their other revenue streams front and center. But it’s hardly appropriate that their priorities should govern what happens on an internet that belongs to everyone – and in the process cripple our businesses, academics and families in an age where instant online communication is everything.

My name is Richard Heitmeyer and I think we could resolve the mortgage crisis by establishing this program

Citizens Residential Guarantee Program

established to treat the problem
and eliminate the need to bailout Wall Street

Federal Government will establish a Citizens Residential Relief Fund of $250 billion with authorization to increase the fund to $700 billion subject to congressional oversight. These funds will be used to fund a portion of a qualifying property owner monthly mortgage payment dependent upon the citizen’s financial needs.

The funds advanced will become an interest bearing superior first lien against the real estate for which the funds are funding part of the property owner’s monthly debt service.

When residence is sold at a future date the federal first lien will be liquidated. The balance of the funds will be applied to the first mortgage, if these funds are not sufficient to pay the mortgage in full the mortgage holder will incur the loss.

The benefits of this plan are:
1. property owner stays in home
2. property owner maintains home
3. property is not sold at a fire sale price therefore neighborhood real estate values maintained
4. mortgage holder holds a performing mortgage therefore eliminating massive write downs
5. debt service keeps flowing uninterrupted relieving stress on financial institution
6. foreclosure pressures on local courts reduced
7. over time housing prices increase and everyone comes out whole

The Citizens Residential Fund will address financial problems due to
1. resetting of monthly debt service due to improper or misunderstood disclosures to property owner
2. property owner unemployment problems
3. property owner health problems
4. property owner financial problems

The backbone of this country is the residential property owner, deal with his/her problems and the institutional problems with take care of themselves with enforced regulation. The American dream is home ownership lets keep it that way.

My name is River and I think we can address the problem of providing universal health care for all by doing this:

Group Americans into regions for the purpose of health insurance. For example, group together Oregon, Washington, and Idaho as the Northwest Region. Each region would have a director, either one elected by the people of the region or one appointed federally or at the state level.

The Office of the Health Care Director would invite insurance companies to compete for the privilege of serving the group. Rates would be set by law, and insurance companies would not be able to discriminate against insureds who have “pre-existing conditions”, nor would they be allowed to practice recission. Maximum lifetime caps on insurance would also be forbidden. The Office of the Director would choose a plan from among those offered, taking into consideration cost per individual, cost per family, and comprehensiveness of medical and dental service offered. That plan would then become available to every member of the region at a reasonable cost. This would allow regions to take advantage of group rates rather than forcing individuals who do not otherwise have coverage to attempt to buy insurance on their own, which is often problematic.

If some of the people in a given region did not like the region’s health insurance plan, the health plan used by members of Congress would be available to them, also at a reasonable rate (set by law).

Subsidies would be available to those who cannot afford to buy insurance on their own. The subsidies would reach individuals and families whose incomes were up to 300% of the poverty level in that region or state. They would gradually be phased out as the income level approached 300%. This could potentially be funded by an extra tax on the sale of property with a currently assessed value of over $300,000. The assessed value would be determined by the entity to which the property owner pays property taxes.

Doctors would see the value of accepting this insurance, since they would only be dealing with a single entity to get paid for their work. The insurance company chosen by the region would need to agree to pay claims in a timely manner (no more than 30 days for any reason) and it would be stipulated that the insurance company, which is not practicing medicine, would not question the doctor’s recommendation for treatment or preventative steps. Nor would the insurance company be permitted to deny care as long as premiums had been paid within 31 days prior to the treatment. Doctors, in turn, would be forbidden to own testing facilities such as cancer screenings, mammography, bone density scanners, and MRIs, unless they worked in the scanning facility as a results interpreter and in no way saw patients or made recommendations to patients for further care.

Businesses would be encouraged, via tax breaks, to contribute up to the full sum of an employee’s premium. Businesses that contribute nothing (or less than a specified amount or percentage of premium) to an employee’s premium would be taxed and that tax would help to pay for tax breaks for business that do contribute.

All medical records would be kept electronically, to be accessed by any of a patient’s doctors, and all imaging facilities would upload the images to the patient’s electronic file.

Prescription drugs would be covered, and the patient would have sliding co-pays for prescriptions such as $5 for preferred generics, $10 for more costly generics, $20 for some preferred brand-name drugs, and $40 for the other brand-name drugs. All prescription drugs would be on the insurance plan’s formulary, as would be required by their contract with the region and by law. Regional plans would be encouraged to research the best and least expensive source for prescription drugs and/or negotiate the best price with the pharmaceutical companies.

People with chronic conditions requring ongoing medical treatment would be encouraged to perform these treatments at home rather than in a clinical setting. Patients would visit their clinics once a month or so in order to receive patient education, have laboratory samples taken (blood draws, urine sample if necessary), and for monitoring purposes.

The emphasis in treatment would be preventive care rather than treatment of disease once disease is established. If lifestyle modification will help to prevent a disease from occurring, it can be prescribed by a physician. Classes in lifestyle modification following medical guidelines should be included in coverage, and failing to even attempt said lifestyle modification could possibly incur penalties of some sort, perhaps a percentage of co-insurance to be paid by the patient until he or she starts the prescribed lifestyle modification and sticks with it. If the patient is diagnosed with diabetes or pre-diabetes, visits (at a minimum, one initial visit and one follow-up) to a Certified Diabetes Educator should be covered.

A number of mental health visits to a therapist should be covered each year for patients who need this or feel they need it. Full dental coverage should also be a part of this plan.

While office visits may incur a small co-pay, co-insurance would not be required except for situations where the patient is being penalized for not making any lifestyle modification changes.

Since the regional plan and the federal plan would be the only plans in the region, doctors and other health providers would, of necessity, lower their bills to meet the payments from the insurers. Doctors and other health professionals would be forbidden to balance bill patients if reimbursement rates are lower than they would like.

Malpractice insurance would also be regulated and rates would be set by law. These plans, too, would be regional, enabling health professionals to obtain malpractice insurance at a reasonable rate.

Please append. I can upload video?

BBC-TV interview Discovery Channel: “The Kiss.” 1989
CBC-TV National Film Board of Canada interview; “Slippery Blisses.” 1998
Peer-reviewed medical journal articles:
Nicholson B., Pheromones cause disease: pheromone/odourant transduction. Med Hypotheses. 2001 Sep;57(3):361-77.
Nicholson B., Pheromones cause disease: the exocrinology of anorexia nervosa. Med Hypotheses. 2000 Mar;54(3):438-43.
Nicholson B., Does kissing aid human bonding by semiochemical addiction? Br J Dermatol. 1984 Nov;111(5):623-7.

Ross: We don’t have the bandwidth to host your video but we will publish a link to it if you provide one. –hw

We do need systems in place to give more opprtunity to working and non-working Americans alike. Temporary taxes should be implemented also. A new tax does not always have to be permanant. It could be used when needed, then taken away also. We must learn to navagate through our economy better. It is imparative that we do so.