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.
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
The Workers’ Comp Whistleblowers
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.
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Health care
Doctors Without Borders
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.
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Health care
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
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.
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Health care
TribBlog: Capitol CPR
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.
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Health care
Keeping Their Bottom Lines Healthy
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.
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Health care
TMA Supports HPV Vaccine For Boys
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.
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Health care
TribBlog: DFPS Launches Safe-Sleep Campaign
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.
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Economy
The Shell Game
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.
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Health care
Magical Accounting
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.