The biggest consumer benefit of federal health care reform — adding millions more Americans to insurance rolls — could spell disaster for some public hospitals.
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
Ramsey on what the new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll says about the governor’s race, education, immigration, and other issues; Grissom on a far West Texas county divided over Arizona’s immigration law; Ramshaw talks health care reform and obesity in Texas with a legendary Dallas doctor; M. Smith on the Collin County community that’s about to break ground on a $60 million high school football stadium; Aguilar on the backlog of cases in the federal immigration detention system; Philpott of the Green Party’s plans to get back on the ballot; Hu on the latest in the Division of Workers’ Comp contretemps; Mulvaney on the punishing process of getting compensated for time spent in jail when you didn’t commit a crime; Hamilton on the fight over higher ed formula funding; and my sit-down with state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin: The best of our best from May 24-28, 2010.
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Health care
Kenneth Cooper: The TT Interview
The world-renowned Dallas doctor who essentially invented jogging as exercise talks with the Tribune about health care reform, the crisis of obesity in Texas, and what lawmakers must do to shore up the physical-education legislation they passed last session.
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University of Texas/Texas Tribune Polls
We Like It Better Here
A majority of Texans believe the state is on the right track, while a plurality thinks the country is on the wrong track, according to a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.
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Health care
TribBlog: Health Care Reform Could Cost TX Only $4.5 Billion?
In an ironic twist, states that have done the least to bring low-income residents onto state Medicaid rolls — including Texas — stand to benefit the most from federal health care reform, according to a report released this morning by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.
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Health care
TribBlog: Workers’ Comp War of Words
As lawmakers on the Sunset Advisory Commission prepare to publicly review the Division of Workers’ Compensation on Tuesday, the Commissioner and his former physician fraud investigator are waging a war of words in their letters to lawmakers.
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Health care
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Thevenot on the ideological backbiting at the internationally famous State Board of Education; Stiles, Narioka and Hamilton plumb employee salary data in Texas colleges and universities; Grissom looks at the problem of insufficient indigent defense; Cervantes on the push for “veterans courts” emphasizing treatment and counseling over punishment; Aguilar finds border congressmen asking the governor for a fair break on federal homeland security dollars; M. Smith on another BP rig in the Gulf; Ramshaw reports on nurse practitioners trying to get permission slips from doctors; Hu follows up with lawmakers poking at whistleblower allegations of trouble in the state’s workers’ compensation regulation; Hamilton stops in on Luke Hayes and his efforts to turn Texas into a political powerhouse for Obama; and Ramsey writes on generation changes at the Capitol and on political pranksters: The best of our best from May 17 to 21, 2010.
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Health care
TribBlog: Workers’ Comp Chief Blasts Whistleblowers
As the Division of Workers’ Compensation heads into a public hearing at the Sunset Advisory Commission next week, Commissioner Rod Bordelon is blasting his former employees for their allegations reported by the Texas Tribune.
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Health care
Health Care, Conservatives and 2011
When they return to Austin for the next legislative session. lawmakers will confront, for the first time as a group, federal health care reform. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports on how some conservative activists and politicians think Texas should respond.
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Health care
Diagnosis: Turf War
In Texas, nurse practitioners’ livelihoods are tied to physicians: By law, they can’t treat patients without a doctor’s permission. That means if they want to open their own practice, they must petition, and pay, a doctor to grant them “prescriptive authority” — to essentially keep an eye on their work and, in some cases, to be held liable for it. Doctors say this is as it should be. Nurse practitioners and their allies say doctors don’t want the competition and charge them enough to run them out of business. “It borders on an immoral situation,” says state Rep. Wayne Christian, R-Center.