Coming this Sunday, the first of hopefully many joint projects between the Tribune and the Houston Chronicle will see publication — both on our site and on the Chron’s front page.
Department of State Health Services
Posted in
Health care
Quite an Undertaking
When a family member dies, accessing bank accounts and collecting on insurance policies requires proper paperwork. Despite a state mandate to process death certificates in a timely fashion, however, doctors are dragging their heels, funeral directors say, leaving survivors in the lurch.
Posted in
Health care
TribBlog: Health Care Reform Could Cost TX Only $4.5 Billion?
In an ironic twist, states that have done the least to bring low-income residents onto state Medicaid rolls — including Texas — stand to benefit the most from federal health care reform, according to a report released this morning by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.
Posted in
Health care
Uninformed Consent
Lawmakers said Monday that the state’s newborn disease screening program — which has been used to warehouse infant blood samples for biomedical and forensics research — has misled parents and given them few options to protect their babies’ DNA.
Posted in
Health care
TribBlog: Texans Strongly Back Repeal of Health Care Reform
53 percent of Texans strongly favor a repeal of federal health care reform legislation, while 24 percent strongly oppose repeal, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll.
Posted in
Health care
TribBlog: Dog Days at DSHS
It’s an email you’d expect to see taped up at a coffee shop, not sent out from the Department of State Health Services: “Missing Puppy Found!”
Posted in
State Government
Slideshow: Borderline IQ
What’s a mother to do when her autistic, suicidal son is too dangerous to live on his own — but has too high of an IQ to qualify for state care services? A day with Karen Bartholomeo and her adopted son, Cameron.
Posted in
Health care
Admission Impossible
The wait to get into one of Texas’ 10 state mental hospitals — already long — may be about to get longer. Last month, as part of its attempt to comply with Gov. Rick Perry’s request that each state agency reduce its budget by 5 percent, the Department of State Health Services proposed eliminating 50 beds from four of the state’s 10 mental hospitals: San Antonio, Rusk, Terrell and North Texas Wichita. The state’s mental hospitals are already almost at full capacity, with nearly 2,500 self-admitted patients and allegedly criminal patients awaiting treatment so they can stand trial.
Posted in
Health care
The $27 Billion Question
The debate over how much federal health care reform will cost Texas put the state’s health and human services chief on the defensive on Wednesday, as he presented a budget estimate that is 20 times higher than federal projections.
Posted in
Health care
HHSC Chief Testifies on Health Care Costs
Is the health reform price tag in Texas $1.4 billion… or more like $24 billion? State Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, asks HHSC Commissioner Tom Suehs to explain why his agency’s estimate is so much higher than a federal estimate.