Our Association

We fancy ourselves a good neighbor.

For being further along the learning curve on health care reform than most of the lower 48, this for our own Romneycare being the inspiration, if not template, for Obamacare now in its double digit year of operation, we've knowledge to pass along, across state lines.  

You may harbor bitterness for not having had more influence on the Obamacare legislative outcome. This for paying the lion’s share of health care premium through your payroll all these years.

We know healthcare to be expensive. Our express concern, like your's, has been healthcare inflation, notably its restraint ---the double digit premium rate hikes being too disruptive/destabilizing for business.  

But enough beef.

We're interested in health care inflation restraint, and for this, completing health care reform.

In the interest of benevelent works Livelode.org hopes to restore to public discourse what's too often lost in winner-take-all legislative processes, so that citizens can make more fully informed opinion on issues of great significance. For example, Livelode will sponsor debates for You Tube dissemination that can illuminate the trade off between single payor pricing power and medical innovation.

Livelode is interested in the quality of legislation, not the outcome.  As such Livelode fancies itself non-partisan. We believe the public will warmly receive us for engageing by way of action, and allowing Americans to make their own minds up.

Livelode is also opportunistically asserting itself.

A story may be useful here. 

Do you remember, during the legislation of Obamacare, when the Republican leadership characterized small business as "the job creators?”  This phrase was initiated by the leadership of the National Federation of Independent Business, and was subsequently echoed by the national Chamber of Commerce ---what's not to like about it?  

Long story short, for public disapproval of the job Congress is doing ---now at an all time high of 90 or so percent--- and for this, public inattentiveness to the goings-on in our Nation's capital, this powerful descriptor has had, as you might expect, weak "legs" outside of the District (of Columbia).

We believe we can complete this connection, on Main Street, and in the process engage Independents, and otherwise disaffected Democrats and Republicans.

We intend to do as much, again, more by our actions than with words.

We are going to command and then hold their attention by activating business' stake in public education ---seconday public education being primary training ground for American business--- a natural extension of the active stakes business already maintains on matters health, and Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  

Livelode will be branded as such through its facilitation and the arrangement of its civic deeds.

And so whereas we will be giving the public information to make-up their own minds, we'll be presenting business in a light that ought to facilitate allegiance.  

Our civic deeds are more than charity. It's also currency for connecting with our target citizens ---unenrolleds, wayward Republicans and Democrats.  

Yes, ours is also a grassroots, public relations campaign; and we believe that for the public attending to us, in the absence of them (Congress), the opportunity for elected public servant embrace of us can manifest too, if for no other reason than (their, the public servant's) survival; not to suggest that we don't envision sending some of our own to Washington in the future. We do.

We contend that Congress hasn’t been leading the nation on health care, this in the purest sense of the word.  They may be speaking for their constituents, representing them, but for the paucity of followers Congress has not been leading the public ---through this difficult issue.

Now, back to the education deeds we're prepared to provide. We feel that public policy leaders are under attending to the demand side of the market, if you will, for educational services.  Not parent demand, mind you, student (adolescent) demand. "Inspiration" by a better word. Not to suggest that adolescent demand for educational services is easy to stimulate. But it is a “silver bullet," and for being so ought to be vigorously pursued.

Livelode.org attributes much of the under performance, particularly at urban and rural public secondary schools, to poor demand ---tepid, anemic adolescent demand.  We know, and your own anecdotal evidence probably likewise corroborates, that when Americans genuinely want to learn something, they do. Children with defined learning disabilities are not exempt. We know them to be capable of making their own accommodations, notably, when they, not their parents, want to learn.  

And so what we are organizing to do is stimulate adolescent demand for educational services.  

And this is where you (business) come(s) in.  

We believe that sufficient exposure to entrepreneurs, thriving in their professional lives, doing what they do best, can likewise incentivize and make more meaningful and significant (to the student) the pathway there. When a bachelor of science degree is acknowledged as a prerequisite to the study of veterinary medicine, this to a newly aspiring veterinarian, then the pathway there (high school science) gains in importance.  And for these high school juniors and seniors finishing stronger at high school, as high school leaders, so will the underclassmen. This is ambitious/bold, but also fresh, and for this rich in media value.

And it's not just the parents who like this idea.  The teachers, who are being held near wholly accountable for student inspiration ---which is too risky and short sighted ("all the eggs in one basket")--- like it too. It takes pressure off of them.

As we wrap this section up, rest assured that we'll be carefully measuring all that we do. Livelode.org operations is as much a research program as it is an employee and public relations program. Whereas it is not new for business to have kids into their places of work, nothing like this at the scale we envision, has been done. And so this represents one aspect of the novelty we bring. Moreover, some grounding is in order here. Most participating adolescents will only be narrowing their career interest during their remaining high school years. While this will contribute to their efficiency and productivity at the next level, it is important to understand that our value to high schools is largely about enriching the reform discourse, restoring what's been lost from winner-take-all legislation. That the demand side of the educational market is as important as the supply side. And that child-centered schools remain too imperfect as long as the children are under-motivated.

You may need to know that we’ve less invasive programming available.  Although we welcome internships, for the rich upside of their educational value, Livelode's flagship program is its Shadowship.  Here high school juniors and seniors shadow (follow around) a thriving professional at work, just long enough to make a determination that this is something they can one day see themselves joyfully doing.  

Livelode's third initiative relates to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, specifically the prejudices that inihibit as much for far too many Americans; we are abandoning superficial identifiers, notably race, sexual preferences and gender; and we're modelling restraint in the use of conjecture, conjecture being the intellectual process or means to racial, sexual, gender and other harmful generalization ends.

There’s clearly a lot of community relations value in these initiatives for the participating business.

Livelode.org, however, recognizes that not every business can participate directly. And so, we've other ways that you can contribute (i.e. financially).

In closing, for what it's worth, Livelode.org doesn't believe the Affordable Care Act to be adequate, for being underattentive to inflation. We've a prototype solution in development that can be implemented without the repeal of Obamacare, like a software update/upgrade. It involves the indirect application of employer power. This by allowing adults, whose age does not statistically dispose them to chronic disease, to use their pro health behavior to distinguish themselves as competitive job applicants.  We fancy it great fodder for discourse if nothing more.   And we're even willing to admit that discourse on the merit of single payor purchasing power versus single payor inhibition of innovation ought to have happened, too.  It never did.  Morover, we know chronic disease and technology to be the two greatest drivers of health care inflation.  The public needs to know, and we're gonna tell (lead) them.

For the United States being the leading innovator of medical technology worldwide, we no doubt bear most of the development cost.  Folks need to understand how this contributes to the great expense that health care in America is, but weigh this cost against health care advancement, resulting jobs generated and sustained.  

It is a "no brainer" that prevention is our healthcare "silver bullet." Well, the prototype program we've in development can better incentivize prevention.  Our engineering here involves the application of employer power indirectly at the human capital market, something that hasn’t yet been tried/considered.  If Romneycare fails to constrain inflation, that is if seeing the doctor annually is not enough to heed their advice on best practice preventative behaviors, then we’ve a solution ready to deploy. We need to act now, however. The Massachusetts statehouse response to the failure of Romneycare to control inflation will likely be legislated price freezes.

We need you to be a part of our organization.  And we need you to help us connect with others like you. Needless to say the greater our rolls, the greater our voice.

Livelode.org is a long dormant word for livelihood. We are, after all, what we do, less so say.

We're asserting ourselves in the Nation's interest, outside of the Beltway.