The latest health care news from The Texas Tribune.
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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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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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
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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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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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Stuffed alligators and wolves? A danger to your sleeping infant, according to the Department of Family and Protective Services' new "Room to Breathe" TV and radio campaign. Full Story
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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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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
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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Texas will not commit to creating temporary health care pools for high-risk patients. Full Story
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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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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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Texas could lose out in Washington, D.C. if its current response rate to this year's census holds steady. Full Story
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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
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It's an email you'd expect to see taped up at a coffee shop, not sent out from the Department of State Health Services: "Missing Puppy Found!" Full Story
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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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The latest Rasmussen poll reports 56 percent of likely Texas voters support suing the federal government to stop health care reform from becoming law. Full Story
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What's in an IQ score? For autistic or profoundly mentally ill Texans: everything. A growing number of disabled young adults are considered too high-functioning for state care services, but their families say they’re too dangerous to go without them. Admission to state-supported living centers is limited to disabled people with IQs under 70 — and community-based care is generally capped at an IQ of 75. Full Story
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Lt. Governor David Dewhurst says the state will have to "dramatically increase taxes" or undergo major cut backs in programs like public safety or education as a result of federal health care reform. Full Story
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A Newsweek/Texas Tribune exclusive: The governor talks about the Tea Party, his beef with the federal government, health care reform, the state budget, redistricting, and whether he plans to run for the White House himself. Full Story
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