The president of Planned Parenthood and daughter of the late Democratic Gov. Ann Richards on Republican lawmakers’ efforts to defund her organization, a Texas attorney general’s opinion she says will keep low-income women from preventative care, and how her mother would’ve handled all of this. 

Gov. Rick Perry, who has 52,000 fans on Facebook, said Tuesday that his 2010 re-election campaign's use of social media could make history.  

A controversial budget proposal would concentrate the money the state spends on graduate medical residencies into the doctors’ first three years of training — regardless of how long their residencies take to complete.

The biggest hurdle getting an abortion sonogram bill passed this session may be good old-fashioned stubbornness.

A judge has ruled the state may continue its legal challenge against the pharmaceutical company Janssen over allegations it offered officials kickbacks to get a schizophrenia medicine on a preferred drug list.

State health officials hope they've reached a breakthrough in their effort to achieve two goals: expanding Medicaid managed care, and keeping a combined $1 billion in federal health care dollars flowing into Texas hospitals every year.

House lawmakers delayed consideration of abortion sonogram legislation until tomorrow, after Democrats raised two points of order against the bill. Some speculate finding technicalities will be Democrats' go-to strategy this session.  

The Houston neurosurgeon, author and frequent health care adviser to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst on his support for the individual insurance mandate, why cutting provider rates to rescue the budget is misguided and how far Texas would trim Medicaid if given the permission. 

Finding ways to cut health care costs is all the rage under the Pink Dome — and curbing smoking is a proven way to do it. But budget proposals slash tobacco cessation programs by more than 80 percent.

Big D may need a new nickname. Despite a surging state population, the city of Dallas grew by a paltry 1 percent in the last decade — a rate lower than any of the 20 largest cities in Texas. 

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the Republican Governors Association chairman, squared off with Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, the Democratic Governors Association chief, this morning. Here's the video, courtesy of Politico.

There were nearly 81,000 reported abortions in Texas in 2007 — 11 percent of the abortions reported nationally, according to the Centers for Disease Control's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Texas had the 13th-highest rate of women having the procedure that year.  

Republican Rep. John Zerwas' suggestion that he'd get a "spanking" in his district if he cut education and health care to the bone but didn't touch the Rainy Day Fund has drawn the ire of one conservative activist group: Michael Quinn Sullivan's Empower Texans. 

We liveblogged this morning from the Austin Club, where the subject of today's TribLive was health care: the costs — and solutions — for Medicaid, payment reform in Texas vs. the federal health overhaul, and what kind of hit Texas' neediest patients will take. 

A conservative think tank and Republican state leaders gathered this morning to offer their solutions to the state's "unsustainable" Medicaid cost crunch.