What a shock!

The Houston Chronicle reports

Texas doctors are opting out of Medicare at alarming rates, frustrated by reimbursement cuts they say make participation in government-funded care of seniors unaffordable.

Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren't taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year.

“This new data shows the Medicare system is beginning to implode,” said Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the Texas Medical Association. “If Congress doesn't fix Medicare soon, there'll be more and more doctors dropping out and Congress' promise to provide medical care to seniors will be broken.”

More than 300 doctors have dropped the program in the last two years, including 50 in the first three months of 2010, according to data compiled by the Houston Chronicle. Texas Medical Association officials, who conducted the 2008 survey, said the numbers far exceeded their assumptions.

This is currently an under reported phenomena nationally, and one which will accelerate with the advent of our new national health care. Look for doctors, patients, and companies in the US to migrate away from the new nationalized system (think of the Post Office with operating rooms) into a few variations which will include a luxury service for the ultra rich; off-shore medical care competing on unregulated price, quality, and value; and some other variations we haven't thought of yet. Those who can not afford the off-plan services will be forced to use the national plan as there will be no affordable options. 

The proper word is monopoly, and we need look only to the quality of education delivered via the educational monopoly to the children of the major urban school districts. It is the proper model through which one can envision the glide path of our national health care.

Meanwhile we are left to ponder the fate of a whole new set of villians, at least as presented by our government.  You may cast your vote for these Texan docs, Goldman, or the greedy oil companies.