The latest Health And Human Services Commission news from The Texas Tribune.
Lawmakers have approved carving prescription drugs into Medicaid managed care to save Texas money — an estimated $100 million over the next biennium. But pharmacists worry lower reimbursement rates will drive them under. Full Story
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A joint interim committee is charging ahead in the state's effort to persuade the federal government to give it more flexibility to run its Medicaid program. Full Story
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The Legislature's ranking public health leaders praise the success of the Women's Health Program. But they won't let Planned Parenthood participate in order to save the program from extinction. Full Story
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Texas may be challenging federal health care reform in court, but as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, state lawmakers are still monitoring how the law will affect costs and care in Texas. Full Story
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Texas lawmakers met on Monday to address a pressing problem: the possibility the state will really have to implement federal health care reforms. Full Story
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There is no consensus on the benefits of managed health care in the Rio Grande Valley, which had been the subject of a moratorium in three Valley counties. Full Story
On Friday, a student-organized rally on the University of Texas at Austin campus applauded reforms intended to increase access to birth control for women. Counterprotesters responded with their own anti-birth control message. Full Story
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The Trib's Thanh Tan talks to Editor Emily Ramshaw about the ongoing battle over women's health in Texas. Full Story
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Abortion opponents say they're disappointed by Susan G. Komen for the Cure's decision to reverse its policy of prohibiting grants to Planned Parenthood. Full Story
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Legislators and abortion opponents cheered the Susan G. Komen for the Cure's original decision to cut funding for Planned Parenthood. Full Story
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Susan G. Komen for the Cure CEO Nancy Brinker and Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards — both native Texans — are speaking out about the breakup of two of the nation's most iconic women’s health organizations. Full Story
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The revelation last year that the Texas state hospital system employed three doctors with a documented history of inappropriate behavior has lawmakers again investigating alleged abuse within the system. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports. Full Story
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Root on the end of Rick Perry's presidential campaign, Murphy on what happens to his campaign cash, Ramsey on his next act, Ramshaw, Aaronson, Murphy, Chang and Seger interactively chart the rise and fall of his run, Aguilar talks Juárez violence with a documentary filmmaker, Galbraith on the tug-of-war over surface water, Grissom and Murphy on three decades of capital punishment in Texas, Hamilton and Aaronson on our workforce needs in 2018 and Tan on the state's much-reduced list of women's health clinics: The best of our best content from January 16-20, 2012. Full Story
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Texas lawmakers and hospital administrators took a hard look Tuesday at the state Medicaid waiver recently OK'd by the Obama administration. Full Story
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In Texas, where mental health professionals are already hard to come by, another issue has exacerbated the situation in the state's growing minority populations: finding treatment providers who understand the communities' cultural and language differences. Full Story
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The federal government has granted Texas permission to move almost all of its Medicaid patients into managed care in an effort to save money. But as Carrie Feibel of KUHF News reports, hospitals will now have to do more to show how they spend — and prove they deserve — state money. Full Story
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The Tribune's Thanh Tan speaks with a Texan living with anxiety and depression, the executive director of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health at UT-Austin, and the head psychiatrist for Austin Travis County Integral Care to find out the reasons behind the state's shortage of mental health providers. Full Story
The federal government's rejection this week of a state request to exclude certain providers — namely Planned Parenthood — from the Women's Health Program came as a victory to some family planning advocates, and a travesty to others. Full Story
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has turned down Texas’ request to run a family planning program that excludes some providers — namely Planned Parenthood. But it approved Texas' request for a waiver to expand Medicaid managed care. Full Story
Some cuts to Medicaid reimbursement rates will take effect on Jan. 1, putting Texas’ Medicaid spending on par with that of many other states. But as Jessica Mahoney of KUT News reports, providers of physical, occupational and speech therapy worry many could be left without services. Full Story
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