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Emily Ramshaw was the editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune from 2016 to 2020. During her tenure, the Tribune — billed “one of the nonprofit news sector’s runaway success stories” — won a Peabody Award, several national Murrow Awards and top honors from the Online News Association. Before joining the Tribune in 2010 as one of its founding reporters, Ramshaw spent six years at The Dallas Morning News, where she broke national stories about sexual abuse inside Texas’ youth lock-ups, reported from inside a West Texas polygamist compound and uncovered “fight clubs” inside state institutions for the disabled. The Texas APME named Ramshaw its 2008 star reporter of the year. In 2016, she was named to the board of the Pulitzer Prizes. A native of Washington, D.C., and the product of two journalist parents, Ramshaw graduated from Northwestern University in 2003 with dual degrees in journalism and American history.
Texas' Medicaid program is in a "state of financial crisis," according to an analysis of caseload and costs published by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank. It's the latest addition to the debate over whether Texas should drop out of the federal Medicaid program. Full Story
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Dr. Thomas Royer, president and CEO of the Christus Health System, says that if an error occurs at the hospital, the patient should be financially reimbursed — but not with limitless settlements. He has blogged a response to Sunday's Texas Tribune/New York Times article on the effects of tort reform on the safety of Texas emergency rooms. Full Story
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A class-action suit being filed in U.S. district court today alleges that thousands of Texans with severe mental and physical disabilities are confined in nursing homes with no access to rehabilitative care. Full Story
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The tort reform state lawmakers passed in 2003 made it more difficult for patients to win damages in any health care setting, but none more so than emergency rooms, where plaintiffs must prove doctors acted with "willful and wanton" negligence. Tort reform advocates say the law is needed to protect ER doctors operating in volatile environments. But medical malpractice attorneys argue the threshold is nearly impossible to cross. “You’d have to be a Nazi death camp guard to meet this standard,” says one. Full Story
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British tourist Thomas Reeve's murder in an Amarillo bar last fall shattered his family, which has been unable to claim financial assistance from the state’s Crime Victims’ Compensation Fund because he wasn't a U.S. resident. Full Story
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Disability rights advocates will file a class-action lawsuit on Monday, alleging that Texas leaders have violated the Americans with Disabiltiies Act by confining some 4,500 Texans with disabilities in nursing homes. Full Story
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New Yorker writer Atul Gawande put McAllen's medical providers on the defensive in a 2009 article, claiming the region's health care was among the most expensive in the U.S. In a new blog post, Gawande seems to backtrack — at least in part. Full Story
As expected, state leaders are asking state agencies to cut their current budgets even more. This time, by 2.5 percent. Full Story
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Already facing a record budget shortfall, Texas has received more bad news: The portion of state Medicaid costs paid by the federal government is about to drop. Texas’ Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, a mathematical formula linked to a state's per-capita personal income, will fall more than 2 percentage points in late 2011, equivalent to a $1.2 billion hit. Only two states — Louisiana and North Dakota — will face a bigger percentage drop. And that’s after federal stimulus funds that have been artificially enhancing this match dry up in the spring, another blow to cash-strapped state Medicaid programs in Texas and across the nation. Full Story
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The goal of the legislation was lofty: to help people who have been exonerated clear their criminal records, quickly and completely. The unexpected result? News organizations must pay hundreds of dollars in monthly fees to keep a copy of the state’s criminal records database. Full Story
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