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Health care
In-depth reporting on public health, healthcare policy, hospitals, and wellness issues shaping communities across Texas, from The Texas Tribune.
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Health care
Managed Into the Red?
Texas hospital administrators aren’t thrilled about the 10 percent Medicaid provider rate cut included in the House’s proposed budget. But what they fear more is the proposed expansion of Medicaid managed care, which could force them to forgo a combined $1 billion a year in federal funding.
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Economy
A Chicken Little Budget
Whatever budget lawmakers eventually approve will serve as the working blueprint for the state for the two years starting in September. But the budget released last week isn’t a blueprint — it’s a political document. It marks the shift from the theoretical rhetoric of the campaigns to the reality of government.
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Health care
Pick Your Poison
In the House, it’s the nastiest, ugliest budget anybody’s seen in a zillion years. In the Senate, they’ll start on Monday with voter ID, the issue that froze the Legislature two years ago.
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Criminal Justice
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
The Trib staff on the sweeping cuts in the proposed House budget, Grissom on what’s lost and not found at the Department of Public Safety, Galbraith on the wind power conundrum, Hamilton on higher ed’s pessimistic budget outlook, Stiles and Swicegood debut an incredibly useful bill tracker app, Ramsey interviews Rick Perry on the cusp of his second decade as governor, Aguilar on a Mexican journalist’s quest for asylum in the U.S., Ramshaw on life expectancy along the border, M. Smith on the obstacles school districts face in laying off teachers and yours truly talks gambling and the Rainy Day Fund with state Rep. Jim Pitts: The best of our best from January 17 to 21, 2011.
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Economy
Budget Blues
As House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, laid out the first grim round of proposed cuts on Wednesday, even some of his Republican colleagues couldn’t stifle their objections. House Democrats went a step further, calling the cuts “akin to asking an anorexic person to lose more weight.”
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Health care
TribBlog: LBB: State Must Improve Care For Disabled
The way Texas is currently providing care for people with disabilities — keeping all its state institutions in operation, despite increasing demand for community-based care — is not cost effective, and should be changed, according to an analysis released by the Legislative Budget Board on Wednesday.
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Criminal Justice
A Stiff Cocktail of Budget Cuts
The Texas House has unveiled a $156.4 billion budget that’s $31.1 billion smaller than the current two-year spending plan — a drop of 16.6 percent. The proposed budget came with $1.2 billion in recommendations for savings and new revenue from the Legislative Budget Board.
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Health care
TribBlog: Bills Get Social
HJR 51 hasn’t had a committee hearing, and was only filed Jan. 4, but it already has 111 Facebook friends and hundreds of Twitter followers. As lawmakers scramble in the coming months to push their legislation through the Lege, expect more and more bills to get their own social media presence.
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Economy
The Looming Cuts
With some top state leaders warning that Texas’ dire fiscal situation will lead to the loss of several thousand state jobs, House budget writers will release their first draft budget today. As Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, big job cuts may be just the beginning.