Prediction: Next Stage of Socialized Medical Care

I've talked about this before, somewhat, but I'm not sure if I've ever laid-out a specific prediction on the future of medical care in the US, now that it has been partially socialized by the Obama administration. One could argue that these changes were inevitable with or without the latest "reform", and that they stem from the Medicare system in general, but more socialization certainly doesn't help.

From Texas: more doctors opting out of Medicare. Now, no big surprise here: Medicare is somewhat unfair to practitioners, underpays for procedures, has horrible inefficiencies, a spotty payment history, and is generally a pain compared to other insurance programs. To some extent providers accept Medicare for the same reason businesses take credit cards: it opens up markets and allows more sales opportunities. However, as the Medicare costs go up and the system continues to degrade, look for more practitioners to drop it as a coverage option, leaving few actual resources for those with Medicare.

However, this will not go over well in Congress, especially since more people than ever are going to be on government health care. In response, Congress will mandate that some practitioners take Medicare, probably all over a certain size. This will launch a fight between the medical industry and Congress, and cause more hospitals to go under and/or restructure to avoid falling under the mandate. We may also see some bailouts in the form of subsidization, to delay the problem at the expense of the taxpayers, while the underlying problem continues to get worse. In the meantime, the medical profession will become even less attractive from a cost/potential perspective, and we could see even more of a shortage of practitioners.

Eventually indefinite subsidization and accounting shell games will no longer be able to hide the true cost of Medicare, and the problems will come to a head. At this point, it's hard to say what will happen; liberals will blame conservatives and visa-versa, but in terms of real action, it's anyone's guess. Politicians will try to forestall this point until we as a country have more dire things to worry about (eg: hyperinflation), which, at the rate Obama and the liberals in Congress are expanding the deficit, may come sooner rather than later, and they may succeed. If they do, it'll get lost in the revolts which inevitably follow an effective national default; if they do not, the rest of the options may all be untenable, and it could well be the final straw.