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.
Health care
In-depth reporting on public health, healthcare policy, hospitals, and wellness issues shaping communities across Texas, from The Texas Tribune.
TribBlog: Perry Rejects New Pool for High-Risk Patients
Texas will not commit to creating temporary health care pools for high-risk patients.
Counting the Colonias
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.
Blame It On Health Care
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.
TribBlog: Texas Could Lose Out After Census Deadline
Texas could lose out in Washington, D.C. if its current response rate to this year’s census holds steady.
Wealth Care Reform
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.
TribBlog: Dog Days at DSHS
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!”
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
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.
TribBlog: Half of Texans Support Suing Over HC Reform
The latest Rasmussen poll reports 56 percent of likely Texas voters support suing the federal government to stop health care reform from becoming law.
Slipping Through the Cracks
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.


