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.
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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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
Health care
TribBlog: Report Says Healthier Prisons = Healthier Communities
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.
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.
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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.
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Health care
The Opt-Out Option
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.
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Health care
TribBlog: Medicaid Madness
Now hitting airwaves on whether Texas should drop out of the federal Medicaid program: Gov. Rick Perry and Dallas’ Parkland Hospital CEO Ron Anderson.
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Health care
Parkland CEO on Medicaid
Parkland CEO on MedicaidTexas Tribune donors or members may be quoted or mentioned in our stories, or may be the subject of them. For a complete list of contributors, click here.
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Health care
TribBlog: A Death At Daystar
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.