A House bill designed to curb Medicaid fraud became a vehicle to save floundering health care legislation on Friday. 

Managed care plans would be required to offer more mental health services to Medicaid recipients under a bill tentatively approved by the House on Friday.

Texas Right to Life is working overtime to defeat a measure supporters say would improve state laws governing end-of-life medical decisions. With time running out, the fight over the legislation has shifted from political to personal.

Medicaid providers would have clearer due process rights during fraud investigations under a measure the House gave tentative approval to on Wednesday.

After a years-long fight for prescriptive authority, advanced practice nurses and physician assistants supervised by a physician may soon get authority to prescribe controlled substances, under a bill the House gave an early OK to Tuesday.

In the waning days of budget negotiations, medical providers are pushing lawmakers to raise Medicaid reimbursement rates that were chopped two years ago.

The Texas Medical Association is pushing measures this legislative session to help modernize medical practices, such as collecting or verifying patient data by swiping a driver's license.

UPDATED: With the prospect of Medicaid expansion on life support, protesters gathered at the Capitol on Wednesday to urge state leadership to expand coverage to poor adults, and state Democrats announced that they’re still searching for a legislative vehicle to expand coverage. 

Abortion is usually a contentious issue in the Texas Legislature, but this session, lawmakers have had relatively few public debates on it. Use this Tribune interactive to track the progress of bills related to abortion.

The political fireworks that accompanied lawmakers’ 2011 fight over women’s health care and abortion has been replaced with some semblance of concession, as legislators work quietly to restore financing.

State Rep. Jim Keffer, who is sponsoring legislation that would overhaul CPRIT, told a House committee Wednesday that “there was never anybody feathering their nest” with funds from the cancer research institute.

At the Trib's April 25 symposium on higher education at the University of Texas at Austin, state Reps. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, and John Zerwas, R-Simonton, talked about Medicaid, mental health and more.

Despite opposition from conservative Republicans, the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday advanced a proposal that would reform Medicaid by allowing the state to request a block grant from the federal government and expand coverage to low-income Texans.

Texas optometrists are lobbying the Legislature for more power to negotiate contracts with health insurance companies, and the measure they are supporting could hit consumers’ wallets, some business advocates say.

Ahead of the 83rd legislative session, the state’s 10 leading health care associations gave more than $4.6 million to Texas candidates. This interactive shows how much — and to whom — health care associations donated in 2011 and 2012.

Amid hours of testimony from advocates in support of Medicaid expansion on Tuesday, state Rep. John Zerwas, R-Simonton, described his proposal for an alternative program to provide health coverage for the poor and uninsured.

UPDATED: The Texas Senate on Monday approved legislation that aims to tackle Medicaid fraud.

Under a bill by Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, applicants for unemployment benefits could be subject to drug testing if their responses to a questionnaire raise red flags.