Congress To Expand SCHIP Despite Texas GOP Opposition
from The Houston Chronicle, Jan. 19, 2009
In one of its first actions of the new year, The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program by a 289-139 margin. The popular program provides federal matching money to the states to provide subsidized health insurance for 7 million youngsters, mostly from working poor and lower-middle-class families. The $32.3 billion expansion of SCHIP will allow coverage for 4 million more children, and would be funded by a 61 cent increase of the federal tax for a pack of cigarettes. With President Barack Obama a strong supporter and bipartisan Senate support precluding the possibility of a filibuster, many GOP members of Congress who had previously opposed the program joined the majority. No such rethinking of previous partisan positions was evident in the Texas delegation, where 20 Republicans voted against the SCHIP bill. More

Electronic Health Records Not On Track
from McKnight’s, Jan 21, 2009
It might be hard to believe, but it was five years ago when President Bush declared his support for an electronic health records initiative by creating the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. Now at the halfway point to 2014, the EHR effort does not appear to be far enough along to make the deadline. A a recent Texas Medical Association study that shows the physician community struggling with IT and HER. More

Loan Program to Counter Texas Physician Shortage
from The San Antonio Express-News, Jan. 22, 2009
Texas Health and Human Services has announced the creation of a loan repayment program for doctors, dentists and specialists who administer medical services for children with Medicaid. This program helps children with Medicaid to access medical care by providing doctors with an incentive: the repayment of their student loans. Currently, the Texas Tech University Health Science Center has three medical schools which serve the West Texas community, the TTHSC School of Medicine with campuses in Lubbock and Permian Basin as well as the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine located in El Paso. More

Hurricane Ike and the University of Texas Medical Branch
from Texas Monthly, January, 2009
Steve Ogden, the sharp-witted, white-haired chairman of the state Senate Finance Committee, is not often stumped, but lately he has been mystified by the behavior of the board of regents of the University of Texas. Ogden can’t figure out why, in the wake of Hurricane Ike, the leaders of the UT System seem willing to allow one of Texas’s finest medical institutions, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, to suffer a slow and unnecessary death. More

Opinion: Business Leaders Need to Push Health Care Reform
from The Fort Worth Business Press, Jan. 19, 2009
As business leaders, we should encourage health care reform. Simply doing nothing about health care is not an option anymore. The United States has the most expensive health care system in the world per capita, but lags behind most developed countries in virtually every health statistic worth mentioning, including life expectancy at birth. America’s infant mortality rate is 6.8 per 1,000 births – more than twice as high as Japan, Sweden and Norway. In fact, too many American children receive too little medical attention. A UNICEF study ranks the United States second to last among 21 developed nations for child well being. The situation is getting worse, not better, especially here in Texas, where our health rankings have dropped dramatically in just the past year. More

Doctor-Owned Hospitals Fare Poorly in Child Health Bill
from The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 22, 2009
A bill making its way through Congress to provide more low-income children with health-insurance coverage could spell financial trouble for scores of hospitals owned by physicians. The number of doctor-owned hospitals has tripled to about 200 since 1990, but they have long been mired in controversy. Supporters say these hospitals, which often focus on one or two lucrative services, such as cardiac care or orthopedics, are highly efficient, saving expenses for both patients and insurance programs, including Medicare. More

Attorney Withdraws Motion to Take Dallas Baby Off Life Support
from The Dallas Morning News, Jan. 21, 2009
The fate of a brain-damaged 6-month-old Dallas boy is uncertain after his court-appointed attorney on Tuesday withdrew a motion to let doctors take the baby off life support. But the fate of his parents, arrested last month on child abuse charges, may hinge on whether David Coronado Jr. survives his horrific injuries. The baby's attorney ad litem, Holly Schreier, told a juvenile district court judge that doctors at Children's Medical Center Dallas had assessed a change in the baby's condition. She did not say what the change was, and she did not return a call for comment. A doctor reported in December that he expected David to suffer severe disabilities if he survived. It is unclear if doctors now expect the baby to remain in a vegetative or minimally conscious state. More

Medicaid, COBRA Provisions Under Economic Stimulus Package Expand Health Care Coverage
from The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, Jan. 21, 2009
Under the two-year economic stimulus package released last week by House Democrats, recently laid-off workers could receive health coverage assistance through an $8.6 billion expansion in Medicaid or $30 billion in federal COBRA subsidies, the Washington Post reports. The Medicaid expansion would be the "largest step ever taken beyond [the program's] original purpose of insuring people who are poor or disabled," according to the Post. House leaders said that under the proposal, the federal government would pay in full all benefits and administrative costs for all unemployed Medicaid beneficiaries through 2010. The proposal would allow states to choose whether to extend Medicaid coverage to unemployed residents, and it would allow states to determine who would qualify for the program. More