The latest health care news from The Texas Tribune.
You can let your children out of the storm cellar — the Texas Legislature has gone home. Better still, our insiders don't think lawmakers will be back in session before January 2013, when the 83rd Legislature will convene. Full Story
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The Trib's been keeping track of the key issues throughout the special session. From budget measures to school finance, health care and airport groping, here's our final rundown of bills that passed, and the ones that died. Full Story
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Attribute it to a Teflon coating, to his decisive win in a divided primary last year, or to luck, but Gov. Rick Perry is coming out of the 82nd legislative session without many bruises. Full Story
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Companies that provide intensive in-home care to patients who might otherwise be in nursing homes could face big cuts under a cost-saving budget proposal the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) will consider today. Full Story
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Two weeks after Gov. Rick Perry flew to Los Angeles to speak at an anti-abortion rally sponsored by Unidos Por La Vida, the video of his June 11 speech is finally available for viewing. Full Story
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Lawmakers must wrap up the special session on Wednesday, with a few outstanding priorities left to tackle. Here's a rundown of where the Texas Legislature stands going into the second-to-last day of the special session. Full Story
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House and Senate lawmakers have approved the conference committee report for SB 7, an omnibus health reform bill loaded with amendments, some of them controversial. Full Story
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A glitch in the federal health reform bill that would make many middle-class Americans eligible for Medicaid could cost Texas nearly $90 million a year by 2017, according to a state analysis. Full Story
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The Texas Alliance For Life had a photographer in the House gallery this morning shooting empty seats on the floor —checking for lawmakers who ducked the vote on SB 7, a health bill that has anti-abortion amendments. Full Story
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Your afternoon reading: Sanctuary cities bill isn't dead; UT System and former adviser Rick O'Donnell reach settlement; House passes health reform bill; George Will says Rick Perry is a "potentially potent candidate"; debating how much credit Perry deserves for jobs creation; TSA removes 95-year-old woman's diaper Full Story
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Gov. Rick Perry’s neon-light promotion on the national stage of the $6 billion left in the Rainy Day Fund exposes a disconnect with the conservative lawmakers battling for his principles at home, where his party is working to divert negative public sentiment about the deep budget reductions. Full Story
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Children on Medicaid under the age of three will not be prescribed powerful anti-psychotic drugs without a special authorization, under new rules the state Health and Human Services Commission implemented last week. Full Story
The Tribune counts down to the end of the special session with updates on where the major issues added to the agenda by Gov. Rick Perry stand. Full Story
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Senate lawmakers pushed a ban on smoking in public places out of committee this afternoon, sending it to the full upper chamber for a vote. Full Story
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Brace yourselves. There's still a possibility it won't happen, but brace yourselves nevertheless, because in some ways it’s happening already. Full Story
Aaronson and Murphy visualize what happened to the nearly 5,800 bills introduced in the 82nd Lege, Aaronson, Hasson and Swicegood interactively recap the budget battle, Aguliar on the surge in illegal re-entry cases prosecuted by the Obama administration, Galbraith on a coal plant that wants a water deal from the LCRA, Grissom interviews a man wrongly imprisoned and nearly executed — twice, Hamilton on a controversial UT regent who wants a do-over in the debate over higher ed reform, Ramshaw on the continuing fight over pre-abortion sonograms, Root on Rick Perry's newsmaking trip to NYC and M. Smith on whether cash-strapped school districts will raise taxes: The best of our best content from June 13 to 17, 2011. Full Story
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Likely voters in Texas approve of President Barack Obama almost as much as they approve of Gov. Rick Perry, according to the third and final release of poll results from the Texas Lyceum, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of civic leaders. Full Story
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U.S. Sen. John Cornyn demanded today that President Barack Obama take "concrete steps" to address Medicare's funding crisis. By not doing so, Cornyn said, Obama is "violating federal law." Full Story
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House lawmakers gave early approval to a bill designed to let Texas take control of Medicaid and Medicare from the federal government after a high-decibel argument between the measure’s Republican author and Democratic lawmakers. Full Story
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The Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York released a map of Houston today using data from the Census Bureau to visualize changes in race and ethnicity population patterns. Full Story
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