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The latest Medicaid news from The Texas Tribune.

  • Texas Weekly: Private, Patient-centered Health Insurance

    By Arlene Wohlgemuth

    A patient-centered approach to health care reform would build on America's world-leading quality and high patient satisfaction in a way that extends those benefits to even more people and empowers all patients to make their own medical decisions. Full Story 

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    Credit: Texas Public Policy Foundation

  • Poll: Perry Leads

    By Ross Ramsey

    The new University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll debuted this week with a survey that puts Kay Bailey Hutchison 12 points behind Rick Perry in the race for Texas governor, that says the Democrats are mostly unknown and trailing that perennial frontrunner, Undecided, and that finds the Maybe Race for U.S. Senate dominated by three candidates who are all, in turn, losing to Undecided. Full Story 

  • Best-Laid Plans

    By Ross Ramsey

    It's hard to believe the governor saw this coming. When Rick Perry decided to replace the a board on the eve of a hearing about the evidence that sent a Texas man to the executioner, he couldn't have been thinking the story would grow legs and stomp all around his bid for reelection. Full Story 

  • Is there a doctor on the line?

    By Emily Ramshaw

    Emergency medical technicians and entry-level nurses could be cut out of the telemedicine equation under a proposal the Texas Medical Board is considering. The change would prohibit anyone but doctors, physicians' assistants and advanced practice nurses from presenting patients for care via long-distance videoconferencing – a move rural hospitals and prison doctors adamantly oppose. Full Story 

    Perry shakes hands after a speech in the Texas House.
    Credit: Ross Ramsey

  • Changing the Odds

    By Ross Ramsey

    Signing anti-tax pledges — as both of the leading Republican candidates for governor have now done — warms the hearts of gambling promoters. Not because Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison suddenly become proponents of casino gambling, but because gambling often gets stuck in a threesome with program cuts and tax increases and that setup is what made it legal to bet on bingo, horses, dogs, and the lottery in Texas. Full Story 

  • States struggling to fund Medicaid

    By Emily Ramshaw

    States are struggling mightily to fund Medicaid services in one the deepest recessions in recent history, according to a 50-state health care study released by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. States, many of them strapped by budget shortfalls, overwhelmingly reported being saved by the federal stimulus package, and said without it, they would have been forced to make serious cuts in Medicaid eligibility. Full Story 

    Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the uninsured. Report: The Crunch Continues: Medicaid spending, coverage and policy in the midst of a recession. Results from a 50-state Medicaid budget survey for state fiscal years 2009 and 2010.

  • State technology chief resigns

    By Emily Ramshaw

    The executive director of the state's data and information technology agency stepped down last month. Brian Rawson, who spent the last three years overseeing the state's data consolidation and telecommunications efforts for the Department of Information Resources, will run "statewide data initiatives" for the Texas Education Agency. Full Story 

    Perry shakes hands after a speech in the Texas House.
    Credit: Ross Ramsey

  • Just Another Day at the Office

    By Ross Ramsey

    Remember the cartoons where the sheepdog and the coyote would meet at the time clock every morning, say hello, ask about the families, punch in, harass each other all day, then greet each other pleasantly as they punched out for the evening? Full Story 

  • Crunch Time

    By Ross Ramsey

    You get the feeling that this legislative session is just like the last one, run in reverse. Instead of starting with a whimper and closing with a bang, it started with a bang. It shows no signs of ending with one. Full Story 

  • Spending Theirs, Saving Ours

    By Ross Ramsey

    The Texas Senate approved a $182.2 billion budget that includes over $10 billion in federal stimulus money, avoids across-the-board cuts in state agencies, and leaves the state's $9.1 billion Rainy Day Fund untouched. Full Story 

  • March Madness

    By Ross Ramsey

    Our bracket says Pitt will win the NCAA men's basketball championship. That doesn't mean it'll happen. And if it does happen, we won't be able to claim (honestly, anyway) that we knew it was gonna happen. We'll just have guessed right. [eds. note: After this was written, Pitt lost to Villanova, failed to make the Final Four, ruined our bracket, and painfully proved our point about predicting the future.] Full Story 

  • One Decade at a Time

    By Ross Ramsey

    That noise you hear in the Senate and the House isn't just partisan barking — it's the early signal that, in two years, those lawmakers will be drawing political maps and spilling political blood. Full Story 

  • Now It Starts

    By Ross Ramsey

    The new speaker's first bit of danger is out of the way, with House members on their way home for a long weekend to mull their committee assignments and to consider the difference between what they hoped for and what they got. Full Story 

  • The Order of Things

    By Ross Ramsey

    The conversation in the halls is mostly about House committee assignments and who'll get what. The underlying political tension is between Democrats who think Speaker Joe Straus should reward them for making up 80 percent of the vote that put him in the corner office, and Republicans who think he needs to consolidate power within his own party in the closely divided chamber to have any chance of hanging on to the controls. Full Story 

  • Waiting

    By Ross Ramsey

    The House has its rules in place after a long day of warbling and negotiating, and the one that sticks out is the rule that lets the House depose a speaker with only 76 votes — a simple majority. The speaker no longer has the power to ignore privileged motions, including motions to "vacate the chair." And an effort to raise the bar — to require 90 votes, or 100, to unseat a speaker fell short. It's 76: If it were a rear-view mirror on the Speaker's dais, it'd have words on it: "Warning! Hostile representatives in mirror are closer than they appear." Full Story