To solve the state’s budget crisis, lawmakers are considering sweeping cuts to almost everything, from school funding to child welfare services. But a $300-million-a-year cancer institute championed by Gov. Rick Perry and Lance Armstrong has so far escaped the budget knife.

Senate lawmakers unveiled bills today to reform how health care is paid for and how providers are held accountable for patient outcomes. Here's a look at how the wording of Texas' proposed reform legislation compares to the wording of the often-maligned federal health care reform law in Washington. 

Texas' superlatives are nothing to brag about, according to the fifth edition of "Texas on the Brink," an annual review that ranks the state on dozens of factors ranging from health insurance to voter turnout.

They’re surely facing the worst budget cycle any of them have experienced. Yet in hours of testimony before lawmakers, the commissioners of Texas’ social services and education agencies appear largely unruffled. 

In a rock concert-like setting, at times reaching Howard Dean-like volumes, Gov. Rick Perry used his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington to deliver his resounding message: The government closest to the people is the one that governs best.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Surfside, gave a rollicking speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington — one peppered with cheers and jeers. His target? The "bipartisanship" that leads to foreign and financial policies he argues curb the country's liberty.

More than 100 Texas doctors made a deal with the state: For four years, they would practice in underserved communities and treat the neediest patients — in return for having their med school debt forgiven. But now state officials may be backing down from their side of the bargain. 

Gov. Rick Perry had the ultimate guest to further his border security message at today's State of the State: the young woman whose husband was apparently murdered by a band of Mexican pirates on Texas' Falcon Lake.

Gov. Rick Perry delivered his sixth State of the State speech today, addressing a joint session of the Texas House and Senate, and selling the state's fiscal troubles as an opportunity to make government more efficient.

State Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, won't be on the 50-yard line for Sunday's Super Bowl in Arlington. But some could argue he's got the next best seat: at the White House with Barack and Michelle Obama.

“Dear future son,” the North Texas father wrote in a prospective adoption letter. “I am a single dad who adopted a middle school boy in 2008. Now we are looking for one more kid so he will have a brother.” Instead, the father got shocking news: He would not be allowed to adopt again because his son is on a state registry of people who abuse children.

Lawmakers are crafting legislation to make health care more affordable and effective by rewarding doctors who get the best medical outcomes. But the cuts they're proposing to meet the state's budget shortfall could hinder some of the same physicians they're relying on to implement payment reform.

The lieutenant governor believes he knows how to save Texas money and improve patient care by overhauling how doctors and hospitals are paid: with carrots, not sticks. In an interview with the Tribune, he talks about what he sees as the root of the health care crisis, and his proposed solutions.

Even as Texas pursues a lawsuit attacking federal health care reform, some state officials are reluctantly laying the groundwork to implement parts of the law.

The state representative and anesthesiologist from Simonton on why he filed the House's first bill to implement a key piece of federal health-care reform and was the first in his party to openly suggest that dropping out of Medicaid wasn't such a great idea after all.