Fewer TX doctors willing to accept Medicare, Medicaid patients

Texas lags behind other states in the number of primary-care doctors available to serve the size of the state and its rapid population growth. The doctors' reluctance to take on new Medicaid patients comes at a bad time, since the new federal health care law proposes adding 6 million additional people to the Texas Medicaid rolls with the intent of ensuring every U.S. citizen has access to health insurance. Doctors complain that the Texas Medicaid program pays only half of the actual cost of most services, leaving them to absorb the losses.