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[topperf]

Obama has a new feature on his Change.gov site:

Source:
Share your ideas on any issue facing the new administration, then rate or comment on other ideas. The best rated ideas will rise to the top -- and be gathered into a Citizen's Briefing Book to be delivered to President Obama after he is sworn in. (Source)
Each vote counts as 10 points. The most popular item currently has a net of 89 votes, which we can easily top.

The http://citizensbrief...087800000004mCD link.

Just vote it up and pass the link along to your friends. The text, for your perusal:

Dear President-elect Obama:

More than 133 million Americans live with chronic conditions that cost our nation $1.7 trillion each year. Disease-management programs benefit many people with chronic diseases--such as diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension--while simultaneously reducing costs. Requiring insurance programs to utilize proven disease-management programs is a good start, but America can do one better: it can develop cures.

Think about it for a minute. Even with disease-management programs, diabetics will still require insulin; people suffering from Parkinson's Disease will still require dopamine; people with spinal cord injuries will still require sterile supplies to minimize urinary-tract infections. Said another way: even with disease-management programs, living with a chronic condition is expensive.

President-elect Obama, supplementing your health-care proposals with a cure component would help the country realize even greater health-care savings.

My suggestion? Gather America's best scientific minds. Let them fight amongst themselves and come up with a list of the low-hanging fruit--conditions whose research is oh-so-close to helping people. Establish (and fund) a Department of Cures at the National Institutes of Health and direct them to fund translational research so that Americans suffering from chronic conditions can return to healthy status.

Adding a cure component to the health-care policies you promoted during the campaign would go a long way in reducing health-care costs and, more importantly, help Americans live their lives to the fullest extent possible.

I encourage you to pursue this multi-pronged approach to improving America's health and look forward to working with you to implement the appropriate policies.

Signed,

A quadriplegic who wants to school you on the court.
Obama's NIH-designate is a neurosurgeon, so odds are good that spinal cord injury would make the cut.


Originally Posted by Steven Edwards <- nice guy from another forum. I think it's a good question, even for a Danish lad like myself.