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The latest health care news from The Texas Tribune.

  • The Red Party

    By Ross Ramsey

    Don't look now, but the Texas GOP, the party of budgetary teetotalers, has been piling up debt like a college kid with his first credit card. According to Federal Election Commission reports, this isn't exactly a new development. The Republican Party of Texas has ended every year in the red since 2001. But lately that amount has ballooned from a low of about $70,000 in 2003 to last year's high of $624,000. Now — a month out from the state party convention where 14,000 delegates will elect the chairman who will guide the faithful for the next two years — the latest FEC report, for the month of April, shows $556,000 in financial obligations. In contrast, the Texas Democratic Party currently carries about $49,000 in debt. Full Story 

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Evan Smith

    Grissom on the transgender marriage conundrum, Hu on the workers' comp whistleblowers, M. Smith on the Texas GOP's brush with debt, Garcia-Ditta on why student regents should vote, Aguilar on the tripling of the number of visas given by the feds to undocumented crime victims, Hamilton on the paltry number of state universities with graduation rates above 50 percent, Ramshaw and Stiles on the high percentage of Texas doctors trained in another country, Ramsey and Stiles on congressmen giving to congressmen, Galbraith on how prepared Texas is (very) for a BP-like oil spill, and my conversation with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst: The best of our best from May 10 to 14, 2010. Full Story 

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    Credit: Caleb Bryant Miller

  • A Conversation with David Dewhurst

    By Evan Smith

    For the ninth event in our TribLive series, I interviewed the lieutenant governor about the budget shortfall, state-federal tensions, immigration, why he doesn't release his taxes, and his future plans. We've provided the conversation with the lite guv in three forms: full video, full audio and a transcript. Full Story 

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    Credit: Caleb Bryant Miller

  • The Workers' Comp Whistleblowers

    By Elise Hu

    Former employees of the Division of Workers' Compensation at the Texas Department of Insurance say their higher-ups have failed to sanction or remove dozens of physicians accused of fraudently overbilling and overtreating patients, costing insurers millions of dollars. The allegations of stalled enforcement action have sparked an inquiry by the State Auditor’s Office, records show. Full Story 

    Dr. Ken Ford and attorney Cathy Lockhart, who until recently investigated medical fraud for the state Division of Workers' Compensation, say the agency has failed to properly sanction unscrupulous doctors over the last half decade.
    Credit: Nathan Lindstrom, Jacob Villanueva

  • Doctors Without Borders

    By Emily Ramshaw and Matt Stiles

    That’s right — they’re not from Texas. Newly licensed physicians enlisting to treat the state’s Medicaid and Medicare patients are more likely to have been trained at international medical schools, according to a review of state medical licensing data. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Matt Stiles, Jacob Villanueva

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Ross Ramsey

    Aguilar and Miller on the immigration rally in Dallas; E. Smith interviews T. Boone Pickens and, in a two-on-one matchup, Jerry Patterson and Hector Uribe; Ramsey on how to make $2 billion disappear from the budget shortfall with creative accounting and on the $1.5 billion problem with health insurance for state employees; Kreighbaum on money bombs; Hamilton and Stiles on the remarkably similar policies for policing immigration in Texas and its largest city; Ramshaw on doctors ducking government health care programs; Kraft on the ups and downs of base closures; Grissom interviews Pulitzer-Pize wine David Oshinsky on the death penalty; M. Smith on the three Texans who want to run the state GOP; and Philpott on the lawsuits already in motion over the oil spill that's still underway in the Gulf of Mexico. The best of our best from May 3 to 7, 2010. Full Story 

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  • TribBlog: Capitol CPR

    By Emily Ramshaw

    Lawmakers and state employees are getting trained in CPR and defibrillator use today — almost a year after Rep. Edmund Kuempel, R-Seguin, suffered a heart attack and collapsed in a Capitol elevator. He was saved by his colleague, Rep. John Zerwas, an anesthesiologist who resuscitated him with CPR. Full Story 

    Rep. Edmund Kuempel, R-Seguin

  • Keeping Their Bottom Lines Healthy

    By Emily Ramshaw

    With health care reform expected to place up to 1 million more Texans on the state rolls in the next several years, experts predict a surge in the number of doctors who opt out of accepting Medicaid and Medicare patients, thanks to reimbursements well below private-payer rates. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Jacob Villanueva

  • TMA Supports HPV Vaccine For Boys

    By Emily Ramshaw

    The Texas Medical Association's leadership body voted this weekend to support vaccinating not just young girls but young boys for the human papillomavirus. But organization officials were quick to note that the vote did not include making such vaccines mandatory, which Gov. Rick Perry tried to do for Texas schoolgirls in 2007. Full Story 

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    Credit: Reuters File Photo

  • The Shell Game

    By Ross Ramsey

    If history is any guide, the Legislature will turn to accounting illusions to mask large portions of a budget shortfall of at least $11 billion. Trouble is, such trickery is a bet on the economy roaring back to life — and that's no sure thing. Full Story 

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    Credit: Jacob Villanueva

  • Magical Accounting

    By Ross Ramsey

    It's 1983. Oil prices are in the toilet. The Texas economy is suddenly and unexpectedly reeling. Lawmakers, who happen to be in session, have a choice between big cuts or new taxes or something creative. Comptroller Bob Bullock and his top propeller-heads find a creative out — a way to balance the budget without big cuts or tax hikes. Full Story 

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Evan Smith

    Stiles and Thevenot's searchable database of more than 5,800 public schools, Thevenot on why smaller high schools are better, Garcia-Ditta on the possible unification of Big Bend National Park with Mexico, Grissom on what's likely to happen on immigration reform this year (nothing), Hamilton on how Admm Bobby Ray Inman is managing a crisis, Hu on the health care reform straw man, Ramsey on the no-shoo-in-for-the-experienced-guy special election in Senate District 22, Philpott on the likely post-Arizona immigration brawls, Ramshaw on the emergence of concierge care as a response to health care reform, Aguilar on how Texas will soon become Cuba's top U.S. trading partner, Stiles and Babalola's searchable database of more 160,000 inmates in Texas prisons, M. Smith on the depressing fact that every single U.S. Attorney position in Texas is now vacant, and my on-camera sit-down with Texas Transportation Commission chair Deirdre Delisi. The best of our best from April 26 to 30, 2010. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Jacob Villanueva

  • Counting the Colonias

    By Bobby Cervantes

    A joint effort among the U.S. Census Bureau, Valley lawmakers and community groups is smoothing over the tensions of the past couple of weeks, when the bureau announced that 95 percent of residents of South Texas colonias were not getting their Census forms in the mail. Full Story 

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    Credit: Bob Daemmrich

  • Blame It On Health Care

    By Elise Hu

    Republican lawmakers in Texas may despise the federal health care overhaul, but it's politically opportunitistic: They get to blame the staggering budget shortfall to come on the anticipated state share of the cost of reform. Full Story 

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  • Wealth Care Reform

    By Emily Ramshaw

    The anticipated rush on primary care physicians — the likely result of health care reform’s insurance expansion — could drive rich Texans into private medical clubs. Full Story 

    WhiteGlove House Call Health nurse practitioner Amy Kappler returns from a visit to an Austin patient.
    Credit: Bob Daemmrich

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Ross Ramsey

    E. Smith interviews Gov. Rick Perry for the Trib and Newsweek, Philpott dissects the state's budget mess in a weeklong series, Hamilton looks at whether Bill White is or was a trial lawyer, M. Smith finds experts all over the state anxiously watching a court case over who owns the water under our feet, Aguilar reports on the battle between Fort Stockton and Clayton Williams Jr. over water in West Texas, Ramshaw finds a population too disabled to get on by itself but not disabled enough to get state help and Miller spends a day with a young man and his mother coping with that situation, Ramsey peeks in on software that lets the government know whether its e-mail messages are getting read and who's reading what, a highway commissioner reveals just how big a hole Texas has in its road budget, Grissom does the math on the state's border cameras and learns they cost Texans about $153,800 per arrest, and E. Smith interviews Karen Hughes on the difference between corporate and political P.R. — and whether there's such a thing as "Obama Derangement Syndrome." The best of our best from April 19 to April 23, 2010. Full Story 

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    Credit: Jacqueline Mermea