From the Social Security Institute (emphasis mine):

The fight against ObamaCare not only has activated and mobilized average people at the grass-roots to become politically active for the first time in their lives, it also has created an efficient information-sharing network through Google Groups and other networking devices that allows experts to disseminate information, discuss and debate issues among themselves and interact with non-specialists in real time.

It is a kind of spontaneous Wikimedia. It is fabulous, and it means the doors to the Washington backrooms have been blown off the hinges, sunshine now penetrates to the deepest recesses of Capitol Hill, if not in real time, with minimum delay. That doesn’t mean these jokers don’t bear constant watching because no matter how quickly we expose their nefarious schemes, they still are able to cut deals and jam legislation through in the dead of night and under extraordinary parliamentary procedures.

The most recent example of the Wikimedia phenomenon is an email sent out last night by Dr. David McKalip, a St. Petersburg, Fl Neurological Surgeon. Here is his take on the Baucus Bill (Finance Committee Chairman’s mark):

I am reading through the Baucus Bill and what I see is disturbing assault on the profession of medicine. I see a process that will lead to the near extinction of small group and solo medical practices. A system where docs who still want to practice will be forced into hospital employment or large groups. A system in which docs are coerced into primary care or into various geographic areas.

It will be a system where docs are forced into capitated payment models whether they like it or not – or even know it.

A system where docs will be more beholden to a committee’s perception of “efficiency” than the needs of patients.

A system where medical costs will escalate for insurance and medical care and doctors will be further penalized for prescribing anything that is too “expensive”.

This will be the death of our Profession as Dr. Plested warned us in 2006 at I-06.

Read the whole thing.

I would also like to add the social network sites, especially the Ning social network of the Tea Party Patriots where individuals from all walks of life can now create their own profile, make friends, blog, and start discussions.

This new media, what Dr. Hunter has labeled the Wikimedia, is the next evolution in real time communications. Blogs, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, groups on Yahoo and Google, Ning – this is the new paradigm. There will be many a dissertation on how this new media, combined with the Tea Party grassroots movements changed the face of politics forever.

It is the dawn of a new era.

In other news and opinion:

Obamanomics: Hidden Regressive Taxes

Obama Has a Mandate – but with Whom?

Obama: I, sir, am no Jack Kennedy

What Happened to the “War of Necessity”?