A $176.5 billion budget for the 2012-13 biennium — 5.9 percent smaller than the current budget but almost $12 billion larger than the version passed earlier by the House — won approval from the Senate Finance Committee Thursday.
Medicaid
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Economy
Ogden Proposes Taking Additional $3B From Rainy Day Fund
Senate Finance Chair Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, has dropped the news many have been waiting to hear: He wants to attach a contingency provision to the 2012-13 budget that would withdraw $3 billion from the Rainy Day Fund.
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Health care
House Gives Early OK to Health Care Compact
House lawmakers have put their initial stamp of approval on a health care compact — a partnership with other states to ask the federal government for control over Medicaid and Medicare in Texas.
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Economy
Senators Look for Money Without Saying “Taxes”
State senators have unveiled a list of almost $5 billion in cash-flow tricks, property sales and fees that could be used to ease cuts in the state budget, but it’s not enough to completely close the gap between what they have available and what they hope to spend.
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Health care
Update: Senate Approves Health Payment Reform
Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program could transition to a performance-based, rather than procedure-based, payment model, under bills the Senate unanimously passed today.
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Economy
Senate Budget Takes Aim at Hospitals
It doesn’t include a “sick tax.” But the Senate version of the state’s 2012-13 budget still takes direct aim at hospitals, in an effort to find hundreds of millions of dollars in cost savings and narrow the state’s revenue gap.
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Economy
At Nursing Homes, Fears of a Budget “Armageddon”
The Texas Legislature is faced with a budget challenge that pits the Republican majority’s desire to cut government spending against a vulnerable target: the frail and the elderly covered by Medicaid and housed in nursing homes.
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Economy
Senate Panel OKs Expanding Managed Care to Valley
A bill designed to find cost savings and efficiencies in Texas’ costly Medicaid program — and, more controversially, expand managed care into the Rio Grande Valley — is moving to Senate budget writers for consideration.
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Economy
Top Budget Players in Race to Find Revenue
The Big Men on Campus in the school known as the Texas Legislature have the unenviable job of finding money that might alleviate the massive cuts outlined in House Bill 1, the general appropriations bill for the next biennium.
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Health care
From Texas to D.C., Debate Over Medicaid Funding Rages
If congressional Republicans’ proposed solution to cutting health care costs — giving states block grants to fund Medicaid — sounds familiar, it’s because it is.
