The latest health care news from The Texas Tribune.
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. Full Story
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Spending more to improve prison mental and physical health care could improve public health in the free world, according to findings of researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and the University of Oxford in England. Full Story
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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. Full Story
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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. Full Story
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A week after newly emboldened Republicans in the Texas Legislature floated a radical cost-saving proposal — withdrawing from the federal Medicaid program — health care experts, economists and think tanks are trying to determine just how possible it would be. The answer? It’s complicated. But it’s not stopping nearly a dozen other states, frantic over budget shortfalls and anticipating new costs from federal health care reform, from exploring something that was, until recently, unthinkable. Full Story
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Now hitting airwaves on whether Texas should drop out of the federal Medicaid program: Gov. Rick Perry and Dallas' Parkland Hospital CEO Ron Anderson. Full Story
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A 16-year-old boy has died of an apparent restraint-related asphyxiation at the Daystar Residential Treatment Center, the same facility where children with disabilities were forced to fight each other a couple of years ago. Full Story
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Some Republican lawmakers are proposing an unprecedented solution to the state’s massive budget shortfall: opting out of the federal Medicaid program. But experts say the rhetoric may be more of a middle finger to Washington than sound public policy. Full Story
Twice as many people showed up for the first three days of early voting in the state's top 15 counties as came out four years ago, according to the Texas Secretary of State. Through the end of the day Wednesday (there's a lag in the reporting and those were the latest numbers as we published), 435,007 people had voted, compared with 219,436 four years ago. As a percentage of registered voters, that's 5.22 percent this year as opposed to 2.7 percent four years ago. Early voting continues for another week. During the 2006 gubernatorial election, 13.2 percent of the registered voters in those top 15 counties voted early. Full Story
M. Smith on the frailties of electronic voting machines, Hu on the big bump in early voter turnout, Chang talks to the national coordinator of Health Information Technology, Hamilton on why the nondiscrimination policies of state university systems don't include sexual orientation, Aguilar on the prospect of high school football referees on strike, Stiles updates our government employee salary app to include 20 more public agencies, Philpott on where the candidates in HD-52 stand on fast growth, Galbraith on damage to Texas roads caused by heavy truck traffic, Grissom interviews the first Hispanic sheriff of Harris County and my one-hour sit-downs with Rick Perry and Bill White: The best of our best from October 18 to 22, 2010. Full Story
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Dr. David Blumenthal, the national coordinator of Health Information Technology, talks about electronic medical records, why it's important for Texas doctors to make the paperless transition and how they can do it while protecting patient privacy and improving care. Full Story
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The national coordinator of Health Information Technology on why it's important for Texas doctors to make the transition to paperless medical records, how they can do it while protecting patient privacy and why rural areas are not entirely on the e-bandwagon. Full Story
A barrage of abuse scandals, a federal investigation and the shrinking state budget could be just what disability advocates need to achieve a longtime goal: fewer state institutions and more community-based living services for developmentally disabled Texans who can’t care for themselves. Full Story
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Hu on freshman House Democrats trying to win re-election in a Republican year, Grissom on Republicans bolstered by those same political trends, Aguilar on slow reforms in immigrant detention programs, Chang on the trouble with synthetic marijuana, Ramshaw on how proposed cuts in state Medicaid services could affect 13,000 Texans, yours truly on how political polls have as much to do with who's counted as with what they say, Galbraith on why Texas is building coal plants in spite of tightening federal air pollution standards, Hamilton on community colleges accusing the University of Texas of siphoning money from their financial wells, M. Smith on the court of inquiry proposed for a death penalty case and how it would work, and E. Smith interviews U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess about federal health care: The best of our best from Oct. 11 to 15, 2010. Full Story
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For the 14th event in our TribLive series, I interviewed the Republican congressman from Lewisville on the problems with federal health care reform, what's wrong with the way Barack Obama and the Democrats got it passed and how he'll lead the charge to repeal it — if his party takes back control of the U.S. House. Full Story
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Full audio of Evan Smith's interview and audience Q&A with U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville. Full Story
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Advocates say the Department of Aging and Disability Services’ baseline budget request eliminates financing for more than 13,000 people — the majority waiting to receive Medicaid waiver services. Agency officials will only say that an “unknown number” of people already receiving the services could lose them. It's unclear if lawmakers can make these cuts without risking losing federal funding; federal health care reform requires states to maintain coverage at the same level it was when the Affordable Care Act became law in March. Full Story
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The new president of the Arc of Texas on why the disability community’s rallying cry to close state-supported living centers has become trite and ineffective, why the movement's messaging should be upgraded (employing everything from the iPad to the Bible) and why businesses and faith-based groups should be mobilized to fill the gaping holes in government services. Full Story
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If the state needs money to balance its budget, it should look first to sin taxes on gambling, alcohol and marijuana. Full Story
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