Well, the race to the weekend is finally over — here’s some links found along the way:

• Medicaid woes: I’ve been tooting this horn for a while (see also here): Medicaid, (with Medicare closing fast), is paying physicians substantially less than their cost to see the patient, and it’s causing a huge and growing access problem. In Washington state, over 50% of physicians now have dropped out of Medicaid (for many reasons: unaffordable reimbursements, long delays in payment, bureaucratic hassles, hyper-aggressive “fraud and abuse” policies, higher liability risk in these patients, high no-show rate for appointments, etc., etc.), and most of the rest restrict their numbers. Practices which exceed 30-35% Medicaid patients are at vastly greater risk of closing or going into bankruptcy. The bureaucrats and politicians always sing the same song: “We cannot find any evidence that access to health care is being affected.” After all, they can still get health care, so what’s the problem? The Doctor Won’t See You
• Postmodern Christianity: Last time I checked, religious faith had something to do with absolute truth and core beliefs. Old fashioned notion, I guess: Seattle now has an Episcopal priest who is both fully Christian and fully Muslim — although the core teachings are diametrically opposed about such trivial things as the nature of Christ, the Resurrection, the Crucifixion, and a thousand other central tenets. The response of the priest’s bishop to this? He thinks it presents great opportunities for interfaith dialog. Riiight. The First Openly Muslim Priest
• Michael Totten in Baghdad: — must-read: Welcome to Baghdad
• From the See No Evil Department: Huge weapons cache in Dallas — AK-47’s, grenades, submachine guns, ordinance launchers, tons of ammunition.
   
  No chance it was terrorism, no siree:
   

  Authorities tell us the tenant travels to the Middle East frequently and just returned from there Wednesday morning. That information and the amount of weapons found lead to the involvement of the North Texas Terrorism Task Force. However, authorities say there is no reason to suspect terrorism as a motive.

• Decentralizing counterterrorism: Feel safe with Homeland Security? Me neither. This seems like a far better solution, from the always-excellent City Journal: On the Front Line in the War on Terrorism

That’s all for now. Have a great week, and God bless.