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The latest health care news from The Texas Tribune.

  • Pick Your Poison

    By Ross Ramsey

    In the House, it's the nastiest, ugliest budget anybody's seen in a zillion years. In the Senate, they'll start on Monday with voter ID, the issue that froze the Legislature two years ago. Full Story 

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Evan Smith

    The Trib staff on the sweeping cuts in the proposed House budget, Grissom on what's lost and not found at the Department of Public Safety, Galbraith on the wind power conundrum, Hamilton on higher ed's pessimistic budget outlook, Stiles and Swicegood debut an incredibly useful bill tracker app, Ramsey interviews Rick Perry on the cusp of his second decade as governor, Aguilar on a Mexican journalist's quest for asylum in the U.S., Ramshaw on life expectancy along the border, M. Smith on the obstacles school districts face in laying off teachers and yours truly talks gambling and the Rainy Day Fund with state Rep. Jim Pitts: The best of our best from January 17 to 21, 2011. Full Story 

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  • Budget Blues

    By Emily Ramshaw

    As House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, laid out the first grim round of proposed cuts on Wednesday, even some of his Republican colleagues couldn't stifle their objections. House Democrats went a step further, calling the cuts "akin to asking an anorexic person to lose more weight." Full Story 

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  • TribBlog: LBB: State Must Improve Care For Disabled

    By Emily Ramshaw

    The way Texas is currently providing care for people with disabilities — keeping all its state institutions in operation, despite increasing demand for community-based care — is not cost effective, and should be changed, according to an analysis released by the Legislative Budget Board on Wednesday. Full Story 

    Austin State-Supported Living Center employee Tamika Mays is shown with resident Rebecca Hadnot in 2011.
    Credit: Todd Wiseman

  • A Stiff Cocktail of Budget Cuts

    By Texas Tribune Staff

    The Texas House has unveiled a $156.4 billion budget that's $31.1 billion smaller than the current two-year spending plan — a drop of 16.6 percent. The proposed budget came with $1.2 billion in recommendations for savings and new revenue from the Legislative Budget Board. Full Story 

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  • TribBlog: Bills Get Social

    By Emily Ramshaw

    HJR 51 hasn't had a committee hearing, and was only filed Jan. 4, but it already has 111 Facebook friends and hundreds of Twitter followers. As lawmakers scramble in the coming months to push their legislation through the Lege, expect more and more bills to get their own social media presence. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Todd Wiseman

  • The Looming Cuts

    By Ben Philpott, KUT News

    With some top state leaders warning that Texas' dire fiscal situation will lead to the loss of several thousand state jobs, House budget writers will release their first draft budget today. As Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, big job cuts may be just the beginning. Full Story 

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    Credit: Illustration by Todd Wiseman

  • Back to Basics

    By Ross Ramsey

    As be begins his second decade as governor, Rick Perry's plan is to deal with the basics: to make sure the state is on a smooth economic path, to pass a balanced state budget, to coax the federal government into loosening its purse strings and tightening its security on the Mexican border. Full Story 

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    Credit: Justin Dehn

  • The Hispanic Paradox

    By Emily Ramshaw

    Many of the longest lives in Texas are lived in an unlikely place: along the impoverished border with Mexico, where residents often live until age 80 and beyond. Explanations for this so-called "Hispanic Paradox" range from theories about differences in the diet, faith and family values of first-generation South Texans to suggestions that natural selection is at play in immigration patterns. Full Story 

    Endoscopy tech Dora Facturan, right, prepares Maria Perez, 65, for a colonoscopy exam from Dr. Carlos Cardenas, back left, on December 8, 2010 at the Doctor's Hospital at Renaissance in Edinburg. South Texans lead some of the longest lives in the state.
    Credit: Gabe Hernandez

  • The Stroke Belt

    By Emily Ramshaw

    The proof of East Texas' live-hard, die-young culture is in the bread pudding — and the all-you-can-eat fried catfish, the drive-through tobacco barns and the doughnut shops by the dozen. In a community where heavy eating and chain smoking are a way of life, where poverty, hard-headedness and even suspicion hinder access to basic health care, residents die at an average age of 73, or seven years earlier than the longest-living Texans, according to a preliminary county-by-county analysis by the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Full Story 

    Residents of East Texas, and particularly minorities, often make lifestyle choices, like smoking and eating high-fat diets, that affect their life expectancy.
    Credit: Lawrence Jenkins

  • Losing Dependence

    By Emily Ramshaw

    Federal health care reform’s biggest benefit for young adults — a mandate that insurance providers cover dependents until they reach age 26 — won’t apply to thousands of 25-year-old Texans for one simple reason: Their parents work for the state. The federal rule, which went into effect in late September, required all insurance providers to extend their cap to 26 at the start of their next “plan year.” For many private providers, that began Jan. 1. But the Texas Employees Retirement System plan year doesn't begin until next September, meaning 5,500 25-year-olds will miss out. Full Story 

    Kace Layton, 25, on the Texas State University campus in San Marcos. Layton was dropped from his grandmother's state insurance plan on his last birthday, even though federal health care reform expanded dependent coverage until age 26.
    Credit: Callie Richmond

  • TribBlog: Steady Medi(caid)

    By Becca Aaronson

    Thirteen states expanded Medicaid or CHIP eligibility last year, and 14 states made improvements in enrollment and renewal procedures. Texas didn't fall into either of these categories, but the state held steady in 2010, while making improvements in technology to prepare for the roll-out of federal health care reform. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Jacob Villanueva

  • Decision Time

    By Ross Ramsey

    The Texas Legislature today starts its 140-day effort to puzzle out a massive budget deficit, political redistricting, immigration and a slew of other gnarly problems. The budget issues came into focus Monday with new numbers from the comptroller, who says the state is recovering, slowly, from the recession. But first, legislators will get organized, voting on new rules, a new Speaker, and getting sworn in. Full Story 

    House Speaker Joe Straus, R-Alamo Heights, in January 2011.
    Credit: Marjorie Kamys Cotera

  • The General at War

    By Ben Philpott, KUT News

    Rick Perry might be the state official most publicly doing battle with the the federal government, but Greg Abbott is quietly leading the charge on behalf of Texas. The Attorney General, who was just sworn into his third term in office, talked recently with Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune. Full Story 

    Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott
    Credit: Marjorie Kamys Cotera

  • Discharged?

    By Emily Ramshaw

    Advocates for shuttering Texas' institutions for people with disabilities say they have a big plus in their column this session: the state’s giant budget crunch. Full Story 

    Austin State-Supported Living Center employee Tamika Mays is shown with resident Rebecca Hadnot in 2011.
    Credit: Todd Wiseman

  • The Revenue Guesstimate

    By Ross Ramsey

    Lawmakers are waiting for Comptroller Susan Combs to forecast exactly how much money the state will collect between now and August 2013 so they can write a two-year budget that spends no more than that. It's not exactly like opening the envelopes at the Oscars, but the Capitol community will be hanging on her every word. If history is a guide, her estimate of revenues will be closer to the bull's eye than the Legislature's estimate of spending. But this is a dark art; accuracy can be elusive. Full Story 

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    Credit: Illustration by Todd Wiseman/Bob Daemmrich

  • Needles and the Damage Done

    By Julie Chang

    Public health officials have been trying for years to get dirty syringes and the diseases they spread off Texas streets with needle exchange programs that allow IV drug users to get clean ones — and always they've come up short. Given November's election results, they fear 2011 may be no different. Full Story 

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