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.
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
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.
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Demographics
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
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.
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Health care
TribBlog: Perry Rejects New Pool for High-Risk Patients
Texas will not commit to creating temporary health care pools for high-risk patients.
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Demographics
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.
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Health care
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.
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Demographics
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.
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Health care
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.