★Share Your Brilliant Ideas!

Do any of you have an attic fan/whole house fan? I do, and in the spring and fall I use it instead of the air conditioner. You turn it on and it pulls in cool air and exhausts it though your attic. Well here’s my idea. I’m not an engineer, but I’ll bet that you could install some small fan blades above the attic fan. You could attach these little windmills to a generator and recoup some of the costs of running your electric attic fan. Do you see what I mean?

Here are a couple of more ideas I had.

The U.S. healthcare system is in trouble and I don’t think we can afford nationalized healthcare. Just another huge beauratic fiasco waiting to happen and I certainly don’t have a complete answer. I know malpractice insurance has a lot to do with it that I think could use some reform, BUT I did have an idea this morning; why couldn’t the government pay for one or two free annual check-ups for every citizen? I can’t guess how many people out there simply don’t have the money to even pay for a check-up. Talk about a great preventative illness program! I can see a lot of promise in the idea. What do you guys think?

Okay, here is the other idea I had. A bmindful book exchange. Books can be expensive, but what if we had a group of folks that mailed books to each other? It would have to be some kind of honor system, but say I’m looking for something by a particular author or have a book that I really want to share, I send one to a member and get one from another. We keep it for a months and then pass it on? Maybe some of you could come up with a good way to make this work. It’s just a rough idea I had this morning. (I got both of those ideas while I was soaking in a nice bath, by the way.)

Okay, here’s another one. Preventative care is a great thing right? How about the government go into every town in the US and renovate old buildings and turn them into Government Gyms. My mind spins with ideas for this! Free to join, and track everyone that joins AND actively works to improve their physical condition. The people that genuinely participate could get tax breaks to help pay for their health insurance! What do you think?

In response to themadcookieman’s post:
How about having the insurances finance that in order to reduce their own costs, because people would be running to the doctors less often.

As far as the “government gyms” here is a further idea I had. Those who joined and actively participated could “buy-in” to a National Health Insurance Program that would be available to those who participated. It would only be available to those who actually joined and actively worked to improve their overall health. Am I brilliant, or what? Members could get tax credits to help them pay for the National Health Program, and the people who are really poor would have to “earn” their free health care.
The government could also work with already existing physical fitness centers, so they wouldn’t put business owners out of business.

˚ allowing all good 💗  

Posted on 02/07/2009.

Not my idea, though I do agree with the letter written to Obama. Did you read it?

And btw your ideas are great!

MCM – I Love the book idea. I certainly would like to have access to Meditating Mama’s library!!! lol! ;o)
However, I think the best way to do this inexpensively is to make local groups. I dont know what the protocol on knowing each other’s whereabouts, but say you happened to live near me – by near, I mean in the u.k. For you guys in the states, perhaps within one state could be considered near..? You have to excuse my ignorance of the size of the USA – in my head its soooo huge!!!
But, you get the idea right. Just like you indexed threads, perhaps we could come up with a local directory book exchange index…?
Perhaps its too complicated? What do you think?

In response to themadcookieman’s post:

Dude you are way too funny, and smart. I just have to wonder how many others are out there with great ideas, while our politicians sitting in office are focusing most of their attention on serving “special interests”.

I especially liked you first one of the post, In response to themadcookieman’s post:

Here’s one to add: how about a rain water collection system that one could install on the roof adjacent to the bathroom to be used to fill the toilet tank. There would be a basic screen filter to keep out the large debris – leaves, sticks, etc. It might be a bit of hassle to set-up and install, but think of the millions of gallons of city (or well) water that would be saved!

Here is a letter I started working on. I think I’ll send it to Newt Gingrich. What do you think.

Dear Mr. Speaker,
You are one of the few rational voices out there and I wanted to share an idea with you that the Republicans could consider incorporating into any alternate proposal they might offer as an alternative to Obama’s healthcare nightmare plan. I realize that this e-mail is being read by a member of your staff, so dear, staff member, please consider sharing this idea with The Speaker, please.

One idea I had would be for the U.S. government to go into every city in the country and renovate old buildings (NOT BUILD NEW ONES) and create National Fitness Centers. The National Fitness Centers, (we could figure out a way for already existing privately owned fitness centers to participate also) would provide free or very inexpensive memberships to every legal citizen who chose to join. Citizens who chose to join in the National Fitness Program would be tracked to make sure they were consistently working to improve their physical condition. Those citizens met the requirements (whatever they might be) would be able to “buy-in” to a National Medical Insurance Plan. The national insurance plan would only be available to those citizens who met whatever requirements we set up through the program. Tax paying citizens could choose to participate in the National Healthcare Insurance program or get tax-credits that they could use for their own private insurance or choose to buy the National Health Insurance plan. All citizens could “earn” their way into the program. It would not be a guaranteed entitlement. They could “choose” to buy-in to the National Healthcare Insurance Plan if they wanted to by participating in the National Fitness Program. Let me stress – The National Health Insurance program would only be available to those who participated in the National Fitness Program. Citizens would have to participate in the program consistently and continuously to maintain their option to keep buying the National Health Insurance. The costs of insuring these participants would be much lower that insuring the “general” public because they would mostly be very healthy people. The people who couldn’t afford medical through other private insurance programs could “earn” low cost health insurance by getting and staying healthy. All members would be entitled to two “free” check-ups each year. This would do a lot for preventive care. Once people a citizen who had participated in the plan reached a certain age and had participated in the program for a set number of years, they would be able to continue buying the National Health Care Insurance.

This idea would not only reduce healthcare costs, but it would create many, many jobs that couldn’t be shipped overseas.

Please let me know if you think this idea has merit. If you do I have a few other ideas I’d like to share with you as well.

Thank you for your time.

Jeff Dumas

Great ideas guys!!! I love it.

In response to anoushka_f’s post:

Beautiful avatar picture!! I love it. Let’s see… access to the books I’ve read or the ones sitting there on my shelf just WAITING to be read… That stack is probably higher at this point!! hehehe…

In response to themadcookieman’s post:
Jeff,
That’s awesome – send it off and keep us posted!
Obama got in as people were looking for change. I’m sure they (politicians) now recognize that we need change! Let’s hope that some open-minded staff member reads your letter!!

Here’s a brilliant idea for you guys! Ever want to learn about something new, but you don’t feel like staring at the computer screen to read through a bunch of material? Well, if you have Hal-Reader, a free software program that you can copy text into and it will read it aloud to you and freecorder – another free program that records whatever is coming across your computer speakers – you can make an mp3 file of the articles, load them onto your player and listen to them while you go for a walk.

Thank you so much guys for your brilliant ideas. I love the check-up’s idea and also the hal-reader. Shipping for books can be a little pricy depending where you live. Check your national library system for books. Here in Canada you can order books from anywhere in the country.