Senate Approves Medicaid Savings Bill
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
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David Dewhurst: The TT Interview
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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Senate Budget Debate Stalls Over Vote Count
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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Credit: Marjorie Kamys Cotera -
Dewhurst Makes Budget Pitch to Senators
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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Cuts, Part Two
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
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Senate Panel Approves $176.5 Billion Budget
A $176.5 billion budget for the 2012-13 biennium — 5.9 percent smaller than the current budget but almost $12 billion larger than the version passed earlier by the House — won approval from the Senate Finance Committee Thursday. Full Story
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Ogden Proposes Taking Additional $3B From Rainy Day Fund
Senate Finance Chair Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, has dropped the news many have been waiting to hear: He wants to attach a contingency provision to the 2012-13 budget that would withdraw $3 billion from the Rainy Day Fund. Full Story
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Credit: Marjorie Kamys Cotera -
House Gives Early OK to Health Care Compact
House lawmakers have put their initial stamp of approval on a health care compact — a partnership with other states to ask the federal government for control over Medicaid and Medicare in Texas. Full Story
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Senators Look for Money Without Saying "Taxes"
State senators have unveiled a list of almost $5 billion in cash-flow tricks, property sales and fees that could be used to ease cuts in the state budget, but it's not enough to completely close the gap between what they have available and what they hope to spend. Full Story
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Credit: Marjorie Kamys Cotera -
Update: Senate Approves Health Payment Reform
Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program could transition to a performance-based, rather than procedure-based, payment model, under bills the Senate unanimously passed today. Full Story
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Senate Budget Takes Aim at Hospitals
It doesn’t include a “sick tax.” But the Senate version of the state’s 2012-13 budget still takes direct aim at hospitals, in an effort to find hundreds of millions of dollars in cost savings and narrow the state’s revenue gap. Full Story
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At Nursing Homes, Fears of a Budget "Armageddon"
The Texas Legislature is faced with a budget challenge that pits the Republican majority’s desire to cut government spending against a vulnerable target: the frail and the elderly covered by Medicaid and housed in nursing homes. Full Story
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Senate Panel OKs Expanding Managed Care to Valley
A bill designed to find cost savings and efficiencies in Texas' costly Medicaid program — and, more controversially, expand managed care into the Rio Grande Valley — is moving to Senate budget writers for consideration. Full Story
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Top Budget Players in Race to Find Revenue
The Big Men on Campus in the school known as the Texas Legislature have the unenviable job of finding money that might alleviate the massive cuts outlined in House Bill 1, the general appropriations bill for the next biennium. Full Story
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Interactive Map: Which Counties Could Lose The Most In Health, Medicaid Funding
Visualize the health care and Medicaid cuts in the House version of the proposed 2012-13 state budget, by county and per capita, with data compiled by the Center for Public Policy Priorities. Full Story
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From Texas to D.C., Debate Over Medicaid Funding Rages
If congressional Republicans' proposed solution to cutting health care costs — giving states block grants to fund Medicaid — sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Full Story
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How Texas Cities Rank on End-of-Life Care
Want to die comfortably? Move to Corpus Christi. A study of national hospice and hospitalization trends shows the percentage of Medicare patients dying in hospitals there, as opposed to at home or in hospice, is dropping fast. Full Story
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Is an Incomplete Budget Better Than a Shrunken One?
There’s a widely held belief around the Capitol that lawmakers balanced a troublesome budget in 2003 with a convenient underestimation of how many people would need to be served. So why not do that on purpose, and out in the open? Full Story
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In the Thick of It
The first half of a legislative session is for building the relationships that get destroyed in the second half of the session. Full Story
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It's Senate vs. Austerity in Fight Over Budget
The betting game has already begun on whether the budget battle between a more moderate Senate and a far stingier House will lead to a standoff — and a special session in the summer. The two budget committee chairmen refuse to say whether one body may have more sway than the other in the final outcome. Full Story
Credit: Bob Daemmrich
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