Last week, Republicans loudly complained about a just-approved bill that would send $830 million in federal education funds to Texas with strings attached. But as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, Democrats have their own reason to balk.
Health And Human Services Commission
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Health care
Good Money After Bad?
In the wake of high-profile incidents of abuse, state health officials want to boost payments to Texas’ institutions for the disabled by $25,000 per patient per year. But the proposed Medicaid rate change has drawn the ire of Texas’ disability community, which wants to see the facilities shuttered rather than propped up.
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Health care
The Biggest Losers
As the reality of health care reform sinks in, physician-owned specialty hospitals are on edge. Some are scouring the law for loopholes; others want to sell out to corporations.
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Health care
TribBlog: Injured on the Job
If you’re going to get injured on the job, don’t do it in Texas.
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Health care
An Itchy Situation
The American Academy of Pediatrics recently said that children should not be kept out of school if they get head lice — the opposite of what Texas law requires. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune has this report.
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Health care
Banned Parenthood?
State Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, wants Planned Parenthood’s clinics out of the state’s Women’s Health Program, which provides family planning services — but not abortions — to impoverished Medicaid patients. He says a 2005 law should exclude them already. But for years, the state’s Health and Human Services Commission has allowed those clinics to participate, for fear that barring them might be unconstitutional. Deuell has asked Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to clear up the matter, hoping it will free up the agency to push Planned Parenthood out.
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Health care
TribBlog: Family Planning Quandary?
Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, wants the attorney general to decide whether a Texas family planning rule — one that bans the state’s Women’s Health Program from contracting with clinics that “perform or promote” abortions — is constitutional.
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Health care
Access and Accommodation
Today is the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which has been hailed as a Bill of Rights for people with disabilities. Nathan Bernier of KUT News talked to one of the architects of the legislation, Dr. Lex Frieden, a professor of at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston who has been partially paralyzed since 1967. “Life has changed signficantly,” Frieden says.
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Health care
Baby Bump
At a hearing today, the Department of Family and Protective Services will consider stricter caregiver-to-child ratios for child care centers — but improved care for Texas toddlers could also mean less income for child care providers and higher tuition for families.
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Health care
High Prescribers
A Houston psychiatrist who uses clinically controversial brain scans to diagnose everything from anxiety to marital discord. A Plano music therapist who believes his Peruvian pan flute tunes cure mental illness. And a Beaumont child psychologist reprimanded for continuing to prescribe to a proven drug abuser. These physicians have written more prescriptions for potent antipsychotic drugs to the state’s neediest patients than any other doctors in Texas.
