For years, the state paid private providers who care for people with disabilities to handle their clients’ case management. But an 11th-hour change inserted into the budget last session stripped them of that responsibility, giving it instead to quasi-governmental Mental Retardation Authorities — and potentially creating a conflict of interest.
Medicaid
Posted in
Economy
There Will Be Blood
Ask House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, and he’ll tell you: The budget he and his fellow finance types will put forward in a few weeks confirms fears that carnage is looming. “We’re making huge cuts,” he told a Tea Party group last week.
Posted in
Health care
Nothing Personal
Tom DeLay broke the law in order to grab power. That’s unusual — most politicians steal money.
Posted in
Health care
Tom DeLay Wins!
Yes, a jury convicted the former U.S. House majority leader of money laundering. But his maps — the ones that upended the careers of Democrats and helped the GOP take over Congress — are still in place. No amount of jail time can change that.
Posted in
Economy
TribBlog: Pitts Sees Deep Cuts Ahead
State budget writers will propose eliminating agencies, cutting others to a quarter of their current size and mandating furloughs for state employees to balance the budget without raising taxes or using the state’s Rainy Day Fund, Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts told a hometown crowd.
Posted in
Health care
Drip, Drip, Drip
You know the home inspector told you to fix that leak but hey it wasn’t a flood or a lot of water and everything seemed okay and you let it go and now the insurance company is slow-paying and the contractor is shaking his head and your wallet and this is really a painful way to run a race for speaker… Joe Straus hasn’t had a really good news day since the Republicans won 99 seats on Election Night and he announced the next day that more than four out of five House members wanted him back.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Hu on the Perry-Bush rift, Ramshaw on the adult diaper wars, Ramsey’s interview with conservative budget-slasher Arlene Wohlgemuth, Galbraith on the legislature’s water agenda (maybe), M. Smith on Don McLeroy’s last stand (maybe), Philpott on the end of earmarks (maybe), Hamilton on the merger of the Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Texas Education Agency (maybe), Aguilar on Mexicans seeking refuge from drug violence, Grissom on inadequate health care in county jails and my conversation with Houston Mayor Annise Parker: The best of our best from November 15 to 19, 2010.
Posted in
Health care
Diaper Change
Call it a bad case of adult diaper drama: Incontinence product vendors are facing off against the state comptroller’s office over plans to competitively bid underpads, catheters and other supplies for Texas Medicaid patients.
Posted in
Economy
Arlene Wohlgemuth: The TT Interview
The former budget-slashing Texas House member and current executive director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation on how she reads the mood out there, what reductions in state spending should be on the table, whether cost-shifting to local school districts is a plausible option, why lawmakers should forget about new sources of revenue, the trouble with Medicaid and what members of the Republican near-supermajority in the Legislature must do to keep the confidence of voters — and get re-elected.
Posted in
Health care
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Galbraith on energy conservation and basketball, Ramshaw (and Serafini of Kaiser News) on what would happen if states abandoned Medicaid, Hallman on cities and counties lobbying the feds (and a Stiles data app visualizing what they’re spending), Aguilar on legislative attempts to stop human trafficking, Aaronson on cuts in Senate office spending, Philpott on the latest run at a Senate rule that empowers political minorities, yours truly on how the GOP landslide will change the way things work at the Capitol, Hu catches the first day of bill filing and finds immigration at the top of the agenda and Hamilton on a wobbly partnership between two Texas universities: The best of our best from November 8 to 12, 2010.
