I budget time every morning to read and blog every morning. I do that before I check my personal email or work email. I believe you have to pay yourself first. When you open your email you pay someone else, because it's usually people reaching out to ask you for something. Taking the time to read blogs, synthesize and add value, that builds your community. That's paying yourself first.

Love this quote by Jeremiah Owyang. It's something I try to do in the quiet early morning light myself; learning, reading and understanding new scientific and business articles or journals in my Google Reader or online journals. Making yourself smarter everyday is well worth spending the time on for the future.

Bottom line, when the government “pays” for health care for everyone (uh, the government doesn’t “pay,” they take money from money earners called taxpayers and spread it around to those who don’t earn enough to pay their own way), they will soon realize that some people receiving the health care are making really bad choices about what “stuff” they buy.  It won’t be long before you are required to get a physical, and if you are overweight or have other issues, you will be in jeopardy of losing your “free” health care, or you will be denied aggressive treatments because the risk/reward scenario doesn’t justify it.  In order to avoid this, socially elite “smart people” will then tell us what “stuff” we can’t buy.  Things like beer, cigarettes, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Twinkies, and tattoos, because all of these things have health risks.

This quote sums up my own tangled thoughts on the health care debate, namely on the one hand we all must make choices about how lifestyle may impact health, yet balance that with our individual desire for choice and freedom from Government meddling, but at what price do we all pay for some people's bad choices that take up the bulk of the health care budget?

Join a groundbreaking initiative that is changing the way we learn about how genes and environment affect the causes and treatments of disease. This is research of, by and for the people, directed and advanced by you.

The Research Revolution is an interesting project because by collecting data on at least a 1000 patients for a particular disease, a study can be started which starts to map out similarities between patients.

So if you suffer from severe migraines, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, lymphoma, leukemia, multiple sclerosis etc, this might be the time to contribute by buying the research spit kit and see what your own data looks like in return for providing your genetic data.

Unfortunately, I don't have any the diseases mentioned otherwise I'd be willing to give it a try for $99. Ah well.

It is hoped that through the new collaboration with Private Access, the innovator of privacy-enhanced search technology, Pfizer will be able to bolster patient participation in clinical trials. The proposed online community is set to focus on patient privacy rights, connecting patients, physicians and researchers with tailored information, tools and technology that will lead to more informed decisions about healthcare, including clinical trial participation industry-wide. It will be the first of its kind and is being lavished in praise.

Part of the challenge with clinical trial accrual is patient awareness, so it will be interesting to see how this initiative goes and whether or not it will have a positive impact.