UT-Austin Med School Plans Proceed After Election
Part one of a two-part series on the race to expand medical education in Texas.
Despite its glowing reputation, Austin has faced a gap when compared with other major metropolitan areas: the lack of a medical school and the cutting-edge research it can provide.
But that gap appears to be closing after Travis County voters approved a five-cent property tax hike this month to help finance a plan to overhaul the region’s approach to health care — including the construction of a research-intensive medical school that will be affiliated with the University of Texas at Austin.
“This was the final ...
Comments (3)
Pamela Baggett-Wallis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Is there a process for a new vote on this? Austin puts up bond issues till they pass. Can we put them back up till they fail?
Jim Vance
This will simply become the latest in a long, long string of big-ticket slush-fund programs sold to the Texas public under a mantra of broadly positive benefits for the general populace over the long run, but whose more immediate and shorter-term benefits inevitably accrue to the nest of insider cronies for those in the positions of authority and major influence over decisions on exactly what to build and where to build it, who will be awarded the lucrative construction contracts, and then how to staff that new institutional framework once completed much less who will be placed in charge of guiding and controlling how its budget will be spent.
Steven Kelder
The Austin Medical School is an important step towards increasing the medical and public health capacity in Central Texas. Austin, a town known for innovation, fitness and healthy food, can now put prevention into practice. Public health combined with medical practice - prevention and treatment - is the winning formula to reduce costs and "Keep Austin Healthy".