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Clearing the Browser Tabs – It’s the Coercion, Stupid Tuesday Edition

Jimmie | June 28, 2011 | Comments (0)

I’m going to put two stories above the links here because they’re both big and they are, in a way, related to each other.

First, read Doug Ross article on the administration’s plan to send ~~undercover rats~~ “secret shoppers” into physicians’ offices to see which doctors will take Medicare patients and which will not. I see his conclusion, that at some point the coercion will come, as dead-on. What other purpose could such a program have other than to determine which doctors need the corrective hand of Obamacare upon them?

He linked to an Avik Roy article at National Affairs that details what only the most obtuse or dishonest among us still deny — Medicare is doomed unless we make some pretty significant changes to it as soon as possible. The only weapon that remains in the progressive holster is the brute use of government force to keep the system wobbling along for perhaps a few more years, long enough certainly to ensure that the people who are in office right now can away to their lavish retirement pensions and benefits, not to mention their considerable personal fortunes.

When that coercion comes, you can be sure that any of our complaints will be met with the same bored response that the TSA has given us to explain why it needed to search a 95-year old, wheelchair-bound, Leukemia patient’s adult diaper. These days, “our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure” is the new “we were just following orders”.

Don’t forget to clear the decks at 9:30 PM Eastern tonight for the live recording of The Delivery. We’ll celebrate our 100th episode with some old friends and lots of fun. You will kick yourself later if you miss it tonight.

And now, links!

Line of the day, from Ace: “I’m sure they mean well. I’m also sure they attended a party commemorating Frasier’s last episode.”
Of course business owners are sitting on their money. What sane person would sink money into a business with so much uncertainty about which way the government will jump between now and 2012?
Dear young Democrats, here is a big reason you are unemployed right now.
Finally, there is a reason to like Hewlett-Packard.
Well, hello crazy left-wing anti-war protesters! I had begun to think you all had fallen asleep after January 20, 2009.
Jeff Goldstein saw a rough cut of the Sarah Palin biopic The Undefeated and really liked it. I suppose I had better pay some attention to it now. Normally, I avoid grand biographical movies about politicians, especially ones who are still alive. Such efforts stink as much of ego as do the obligatory “stuff I’d do if I had just a little more political power” policy books members of Congress write from time to time. But if the movie blew Jeff away, it might be more than I think it is.
Want a preview of Erich Whitacre’s newest choral piece? Sure you do. Here’s “Alleluia”, a vocal adaptation of a wind piece called “October” he wrote a few years ago.
James Lileks saw Cars 2 and, while he liked it, he didn’t love it.