Non-emergency medical industry leaving U.S.

I've seen little media coverage about Mayo Clinic in Arizona not taking new Medicare patients without some other payment plan. Coupled with the fact that only

73 percent of doctors are taking new Medicare patient, it spells bad news for people who rely on government for health care.

The new government program is to cut a half-trillion dollars from Medicare. This will only make more hospitals and doctors drop government health programs.

A million Californians already go to Mexico for some health care. Blue Cross and the state already pay for this. Canada is letting private health units become established in Canada to handle their overflow due to their lack of interest in expanding their public facilities. Many Americans are going other places such as India for non-emergency treatment.

Much of the non-emergency medical procedures will leave the U.S. as other industries have. Soon clinics like Mayo will work with Mexico and Canada and will open clinics in their countries to handle U.S. customers.

We keep hearing about medical income and expense being 16 percent of the economy. What will probably happen is the cost to the U.S. will probably be about 16 percent but the income to U.S. medical community will drastically drop.

Larry Conrad

Walker