The latest Medicaid news from The Texas Tribune.
Don't stub out the statewide smoking ban bill yet. The bill's House and Senate authors say they've got a vehicle for the measure to be passed, and they're still hopeful Texas will be the first southern state to outlaw the habit in restaurants, bars and most public places. Full Story
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The ideas on what to do with the state budget are getting weirder and weirder. Full Story
Aaronson on pork choppers, Aguilar on sanctuary cities legislation, Galbraith on Brownsville's ban on plastic bags, Grissom on Delma Banks and prosecutorial misconduct, Hamilton on a tough week for higher education in Texas, Philpott on wildfires and politics, Ramshaw on the state's pursuit of a federal Medicaid overhaul, M. Smith on what would happen if lawmakers don't rewrite school finance formulas, yours truly on the Lege as schoolyard and Stiles with interactive graphics on how the proposed Senate redistricting maps compare with current ones: The best of our best content from May 9 to 13, 2011. Full Story
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Facing an estimated 28 percent reduction in funds to care for medically fragile children, in-home nursing companies say they could be forced to shut their doors, or else dramatically slash what they pay nurses. Full Story
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Texas' Women's Health Program may be circling the drain. Sen. Bob Deuell says he doesn’t have the votes in the Senate to bring up a bill to renew the family planning and preventative care program — and Rep. Garnet Coleman says his House bill is stuck. Full Story
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Texas hospitals have a pointed message for the lawmakers hashing out the final details of the 2012-13 budget: The proposed cuts hit them too hard. Full Story
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Dr. John Mendelsohn, the outgoing president of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, discusses the significance of budget cuts for his institutions, the value of public research and his advice for his successor. Full Story
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Advocates for the elderly and disabled are fighting a proposal in the Legislature that they say would reduce the wages of the personal care attendants who provide services through the Medicaid Community-Based Alternatives waiver program. Full Story
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Across the nation, U.S. House Republicans are getting an earful from their constituents about a GOP budget proposal to overhaul federal Medicare. But that message hasn’t made its way to Texas, where state lawmakers are still angling to take control of the program. Full Story
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House lawmakers have given an early okay to Rep. Lois Kolkhorst’s bill to ask Washington for a block grant to run Medicaid — the joint state-federal health care program for children, the disabled and the very poor — as Texas sees fit. Full Story
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It’s funny that you can win four statewide elections and still have people think you’re a goofball, in over your head. But maybe Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst’s fumbles leading to the Texas Senate’s budget vote give the lie to that. Maybe he’s goofy like a fox. Full Story
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The real rule of the Texas Legislature is that there are no rules when the rules get in the way. If the Senate needs to pass a budget and can't get a two-thirds vote to do so, and if there's a way to squint at the rules and do it with a simple majority, then that's what they'll do. Full Story
In an exclusive on-camera interview with The Texas Tribune on Friday, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius discussed the federal government's efforts to cooperate with a state like Texas, where GOP leaders have been hostile to the Affordable Care Act. Full Story
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GOP lawmakers' battle against Planned Parenthood resumed today, as members of a Senate subcommittee passed out a bill that would renew the Texas Women's Health Program but prohibit the country's most prominent family planning organization from participating. Full Story
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Despite some efforts to lessen the blow to pediatric health care providers, Texas’ proposed budget cuts will likely have a disproportionate effect on children’s hospitals, which treat the state’s youngest and poorest patients. Full Story
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The Senate unanimously approved Sen. Jane Nelson’s bill to find extensive cost savings in Texas’ Medicaid program, the primary health care provider for children, the disabled and the very poor. Full Story
With less than five weeks left to go in the session, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst sat down with the Tribune to talk about his future political plans, the status of the budget in the Senate and in the biennial parley between the Senate and the House, redistricting and the tug-of-war over the Rainy Day Fund. Full Story
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Waiting for the Senate budget debate? Get comfortable. Plans to bring the Senate’s substitute for the House’s budget, HB 1, up for a vote on the floor on Thursday have for now been pushed back to Friday or later, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said. Full Story
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Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, trying to build enough support to bring the budget up for consideration this week, appealed in writing to state senators, supporting the plan and a provision that would allow the state to spend $3 billion from the Rainy Day Fund. Full Story
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A $176.5 billion budget — 5.9 percent smaller than the current budget — won approval from the Senate Finance Committee right and will come to a full Senate vote after the Easter break. Full Story