Dr. Scott Noren for US Senate - New York

Who is Dr. Scott Noren?

Dr. Noren is THE AGGRESSIVE PROGRESSIVE: Here's a short bio

Dr. Scott Noren is an Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon practicing in Ithaca, NY. He was born in Park Ridge, Illinois on April 7, 1960. His mother was Miriam Noren who passed away in 2002 of lymphoma in California. His father, Seymour Noren is living in NC. His only sibling, Cara Kowalczyk lives in California. He is a second generation American with a predominantly Ukrainian-Jewish background. He graduated from Niles West High School in 1978 and then attended the University of Illinois at Chicago achieving a Bachelor’s degree in Biology.

He then completed his Dental School training at Loyola University of Chicago in 1990. He did a one year General Dental residency at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He then completed a one year Oral Surgery Externship at LSU in New Orleans, LA. Following this, he did his Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Residency at Truman Medical Center in Kansas City, MO, completing this in 1997.

He then entered the US Army active duty and spent 6 years serving his country.  Following active duty, he did two Oral Surgery Associateships in Duluth, MN and Saratoga Springs, NY respectively. He then purchased an Oral Surgery Practice in Ithaca, NY in 2005, a practice that had been there for over 40 years. 

Scott Noren DDS

Dr. Noren and his wife Michelle have three children aged 12,13,and 14. Scott also has a grown daughter living in Illinois.

Member, (SDMC) New York State Surrogate Decision-Making Panel.

Member, Tompkins Chamber of Commerce, Governmental Affairs Committee.

Political Views

Ideas

Dr. Noren is socially, aggressively liberal on many issues. Being fiscally responsible means paying for progressive agendas that improve lives and paying for them with cuts to the military budget for instance.

Minimum wage should be immediately raised to $10 per hour. I pay living wages (well above) personally, and we need a low cost national job listing of living wages.

Example: Dr. Noren thinks the Tax cut should have been $500,000 and below...above this small business level, the rates can be higher and be more budget neutral. Senator Schumer was for $1 million and lower...too high for the National Debt. Senator Gillibrand voted for the Bush Tax cuts which raised the National Debt and rewarded the millionaires instead of just helping the lower and middle class.

Health Care

Dr. Noren sincerely desires a health care system in the US that includes everyone. However, he feels that the current Federal system (Medicare) and the state systems (Medicaid) are in need of drastic fiscal and delivery overhauls. He feels that we need an immediate relief from high monthly premium costs by Federal mandate/law, and to drastically regulate the health insurance industry in such a way as to level the playing field for individuals, families, small and large businesses. He feels that after this first stop-gap measure is passed, the health care delivery model can be changed over a period of 3- 5 years in progressively “Universal” measures.

THERE MUST BE A FEDERAL CAP ON MONTHLY HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUMS UNTIL THIS ECONOMY RECOVERS; EVEN THEN IT SHOULD BE RARELY INCREASED. $700/month Family and $275 per month for individuals. WITHIN 5 YEARS, ALL HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES SHOULD BE NON-PROFIT.

While the Federal government can certainly institute these changes, for this to work we as citizens must accomplish the following or the system is still doomed for failure:

• Reduce obesity and improve good nutritional awareness
• Increase exercise and fund community low cost fitness centers through stimulus monies
• Aggressive elementary, middle school and high school curriculum addressing nutrition, diabetes awareness and overall healthy lifestyle
• Discourage similar competing pharmaceuticals and encourage research and funding in disease prevention
• Encourage safe importation of prescription drugs unlike Gillibrand who voted against this
• Medical Whistleblowers are still not protected well; beef up the language in the Health Care Quality Improvement Act that was changed years ago

Campaign Finance Reform

In addition to not accepting Lobby money or individual donations from Insurance, Banking/Financial, Oil/Gas or Pharma employees, there would be other requirements to be a CFR (Campaign Finance Reform) accredited candidate or incumbent. This would include that if you are a Congressional or Senate Committee member, you would be prohibited from taking any political action committee money from sectors your committee oversees. Dr. Noren feels this is a stepping stone to public financing and would be the first major step in that direction. The Supreme Court and our laws barr any real forced campaign finance law at this time. My opponent, Ms. Gillibrand, is the #4 Lobby-money recipient of Commercial Banks in ALL of the Senate and #1 for Financial/Insurance/Real Estate. Not what I want and hopefully not what you want. (Data as of 3/01/11 from Opensecrets.org). Ms. Gillibrand also has 46 pages of earmarks in her web site and one of them, Infotonics, makes for a great Google search read...do your own diligence.

My proposal for Amending the 14th Amendment:

Upon passage of this Bill by Congress and the President of the United States to amend the 14th Amendment of the United States Consitiution to additionally read:

"That money is not to be construed or interpreted as speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to rights under this Constitution. This 14th Amendment will therefore only apply to human beings forthwith regarding campaign donations. Corporations will forthwith not be given all the inalienable rights conferred by the Constitution of these United States for human beings." Corporations are already denied Fifth Amendment Rights and the Right to Vote. Not allowing corporations to donate to political campaigns is in keeping that their "personhood" rights under the 14th Amendment are for business contract and transactional law, but not exclusive rights only given to human beings.

Bank Bail out

Dr. Noren feels that the role of Federal government should not be to decide which Banks should survive and which ones should go under; nevertheless, he feels that future banking and financial rules need to stipulate that the bundling of financial instruments should never be allowed to be repeated in the way they were done that led to the mortgage meltdown. This needs to be in writing and clearly prohibited. The new economic reform bill has major delays in implementation also. The playing field with Banks needs leveling and Ms. Gillibrand and her Commercial Bank Lobby money makes her overly-biased in his opinion.

Dr. Noren feels that instead of the current common manufacturing models, we need to downsize the personnel in future manufacturing plants, increase the number of plants and keep wages competitive.  We should increase the use of robotics so that we can compete in the global economy better and more efficiently. Former auto workers and similar personnel might be ideal for re-training in these robotically run manufacturing sectors.

Gun Ownership

Dr. Noren grew up in Morton Grove, Illinois, the first municipality in the US to pass a gun control law. He grew up hunting pheasant occasionally, but as an adult has given up hunting for personal and religious reasons. He is pro-gun but does believe in limited gun control measures and better enforcement of existing laws. Basically he is pro-gun Federally but believes for example, you shouldn't be able to walk out of a gun show without a paper trail in any circumstance.

Other Issues

Dr. Noren is for immediately amending the "Bush era tax cuts" to apply to $500,000 and below income. This is still helpful in cutting the deficit and will help many individuals as well as small business owners. Dr. Noren's father is a retired accountant; Dr. Noren believes the tax code has become far too complex and needs simplification/reform. The above numbers are suggestions; I would want to sit down with tax experts and hammer out the best plan.

Dr. Noren’s views on Gay marriage are liberal; he believes in upholding the rights of all citizen’s including a gay couple’s rights to have medical proxy and all other voluntary rights such as wills, property agreements, etc. If there was a national civil union Bill, he would vote Yes. He would repeal DOMA.

Dr. Noren feels that immigration should be based on a legally grounded policy and that illegal immigration poses social, fiscal and national security dangers. Helping restore Mexico’s economy after we restore our own will help slow down the tendency for Mexican citizen’s to abandon their own country and birthplace. Most Mexicans WANT to live in a safer Mexico instead of settling here, if they had the choice. Right now, drug-lords have all the power there.

Marijuana decriminalization is the best approach on that issue; driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs however remains to be a big problem and penalties should be severe.

Dr. Noren is Pro-choice. He feels personally in the cases of rape and risk of life to a mother that abortion is morally and ethically permissible. It's a woman's choice how she should approach her reproductive health...you don't need to be a female Senator to back this; just a liberal!