What do college students and preschoolers have in common?
federal health reform
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Health care
TribBlog: Broke and Broken
Rural health advocates asked state lawmakers Wednesday to help pay for improvements to rural hospitals in up to 42 Texas counties. Without state help, they said, the rural hospitals have no hope of doing necessary renovations to catch up to federal and state hospital codes.
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Health care
TribBlog: Failing at Fitness
Less than a third of the state’s 3rd-to-12th-grade students can pass a physical fitness test — and that’s an improvement.
Posted in
Health care
Signs of the Times
A quiet ideological battle is being waged yard to yard in affluent neighborhoods of San Antonio. It began with one side declaring “No socialism” in white letters on a black background. Some didn’t like that message, so they changed it to read “No selfishness.”
Posted in
Demographics
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Ramsey’s interview with Rick Perry’s chief consultant, Stiles on the massive amount of cash that cities are collecting from red-light cameras, Grissom on the coming debate over the Democrats’ two-step primary/caucus process, Thevenot on the State Board of Education’s latest controversial plan, Aguilar on immigrants deported for minor infractions, Ramshaw on the social conscience (or lack thereof) of medical schools, M. Smith on a nascent voter registration effort in Harris County, Hamilton’s interview with the newest state senator, Philpott on Bill White’s feistier week, Galbraith on how tighter EPA rules will affect Texas and Hu on questions about the governor’s transparency: The best of our best from June 21 to 25, 2010.
Posted in
Health care
TribBlog: “Older and Sicker” [Updated]
After Thursday’s lively state hearing, where health advocates told lawmakers they were bracing for massive Medicare cuts, doctors got some rewarding news: Congress had voted to delay a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments six months.
Posted in
Health care
Medical Mission?
Are Texas medical schools missing a social conscience? Many fare poorly in a new study that ranks them based on their contributions to meeting the nation’s health care needs.
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Health care
TribBlog: Renaissance Talks Valley Carve-Out
In a hearing before House budget-writers today, officials of Doctors Hospital at Renaissance conceded they’ll move toward Medicaid managed care in the Rio Grande Valley, so long as it’s done with lots of local input.
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Criminal Justice
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Ramshaw on geriatric care in state prisons, with Miller’s photo essay inside those walls; M. Smith interviews the state’s newest Supreme Court justice, Debra Lehrmann; Aguilar finds fewer Mexicans seeking asylum in the U.S; Galbraith sorts out the politics of pollution and whether our air is dangerous to breathe; Thevenot discovers authorities writing tickets for misbehavior to elementary school kids; Philpott reports on early hearing about political redistricting; Kreighbaum examines fines levied against polluters and finds they’re often smaller than the economic benefits of the infractions; and Stiles and Babalola spotlight some of our data projects from our first seven months online: The best of our best from May 31 to June 4, 2010.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Dying on the State’s Dime
Texas’ “geriatric” inmates (55 and older) make up just 7.3 percent of Texas’ 160,000-offender prison population, but they account for nearly a third of the system’s hospital costs. Prison doctors routinely offer up the oldest and sickest of them for medical parole, a way to get those who are too incapacitated to be a public threat and have just months to live out of medical beds that Texas’ quickly aging prison population needs. They’ve recommended parole for 4,000 such inmates within the last decade. But the state parole board has only agreed in a quarter of these cases, leaving the others to die in prison — and on the state’s dime.