Advocates for shuttering Texas’ institutions for the disabled thought they had the numbers on their side: a budget crisis so severe that lawmakers would have to close some state-supported living centers. With less than a month left in the session, their hopes are largely dashed.
Emily Ramshaw
Emily Ramshaw was the editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune from 2016 to 2020. During her tenure, the Tribune — billed “one of the nonprofit news sector’s runaway success stories” — won a Peabody Award, several national Murrow Awards and top honors from the Online News Association.
Before joining the Tribune in 2010 as one of its founding reporters, Ramshaw spent six years at The Dallas Morning News, where she broke national stories about sexual abuse inside Texas’ youth lock-ups, reported from inside a West Texas polygamist compound and uncovered “fight clubs” inside state institutions for the disabled. The Texas APME named Ramshaw its 2008 star reporter of the year. In 2016, she was named to the board of the Pulitzer Prizes.
A native of Washington, D.C., and the product of two journalist parents, Ramshaw graduated from Northwestern University in 2003 with dual degrees in journalism and American history.
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Health care
Update: House Gives Early OK to Rural Hospitals Hiring Docs
The House has tentatively voted to let rural, critical-access hospitals in counties with populations of 50,000 or less hire doctors — partially lifting a long-standing ban on hospitals directly employing physicians.
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Health care
Patient Privacy Bill Gets Early House Approval
House lawmakers have given an early endorsement to Rep. Lois Kolkhorst’s bill to protect Texans’ private medical information.
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Health care
House Gives Early OK to “Choose Life” License Plate
A bill directing the Department of Motor Vehicles to create an anti-abortion license plate to raise money for crisis pregnancy centers got an early OK from the House — and staved off a flurry of amendments from Democrats.
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Economy
In Hunt for Revenue, It’s Big Tobacco vs. Little
It’s big tobacco vs. little in the effort to smoke out new revenue for the Texas budget. Large tobacco companies, which fork over half a billion dollars to the state every year as part of a 1998 lawsuit settlement, want small cigarette manufacturers to pay their share.
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Health care
Children’s Hospitals Face Brunt of Medicaid Cuts
Despite some efforts to lessen the blow to pediatric health care providers, Texas’ proposed budget cuts will likely have a disproportionate effect on children’s hospitals, which treat the state’s youngest and poorest patients.
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Health care
Accused Wait Years, Face Backlog to Fight Abuse Registry
More than 2,000 people listed in a statewide database of people who mistreat children are caught in a backlog of cases waiting for appeals, many with their careers and families hanging in the balance.
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Health care
Senate Approves Medicaid Savings Bill
The Senate unanimously approved Sen. Jane Nelson’s bill to find extensive cost savings in Texas’ Medicaid program, the primary health care provider for children, the disabled and the very poor.
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Demographics
Berman Not Satisfied With Obama’s Birth Certificate
State Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, has checked out the birth certificate President Barack Obama released this morning — and he’s not satisfied.
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Health care
Patrick: No Holdup on Abortion Sonogram
Holdup? What holdup? Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, says he’s got the votes to send abortion sonogram legislation back to the House — but the timeline for doing it depends on how quickly the Senate passes the budget.
