State Rep. Frank Corte, R-San Antonio, has asked Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott for a ruling on whether facilities need a license to administer the abortion pill RU-486.
“When a woman is seeking to terminate her pregnancy, we want her to go to a facility that’s licensed,” Corte said in an interview.
Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Commission, acknowledged that there had been confusion about the requirements. But she said that the Department of State Health Services changed its rules in June to address that, and she said that the rules now clearly state that facilities do need a license to administer the pill.
In his letter to Abbott requesting the opinion, Corte quoted from an e-mail that a health department staffer wrote in response to an inquiry on whether licenses are needed for a facility to perform “medical abortions” (administer the abortion pill). “His communication appears to suggest that if a pregnant woman is given RU-486 at a facility, ingests it there, but aborts the fetus elsewhere, no abortion has occurred at the facility and no license is required,” Corte wrote. Corte disagrees with that, writing that “a proper analysis … indicates that the administration of RU-486 … constitutes an ‘abortion’ … without regard to the location where the woman ingests the drug or where she subsequently aborts.”
Corte, Goodman said, is correct.
Goodman said the letter Corte cited from the health department official was from 2008 — before the department changed its rules.
Corte — who pushed unsuccessfully this year for a law that would have required women seeking an abortion to first be offered an ultrasound — said that people had brought him information that led him to request the opinion. But he wouldn’t say who the people are or what the information is because he doesn’t want to “get them in a position of being targeted.”
But he did say: “I would not ask if I did not think it existed,” referring to administering the pill without a license.
Sarah Wheat, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Texas Capitol Region, said that her understanding is that facilities need a license to administer the pill.
“Unfortunately, there’s not always consistence and clear guidelines (from the Department of State Health Services) on these issues,” Wheat said. “We support the effort to get clarification on this.”
You heard it here: Corte and Planned Parenthood agreeing on an abortion issue.
When asked today whether he is considering a moratorium on capital punishment, Perry said that “our process works and I don’t see anything out there that would merit calling for a moratorium on the Texas death penalty.”
“Most Texans agree with me that we want a state where the people who do bad things to our children or our police officers, or our citizens are punished appropriately,” Perry added. “And we’ve got that type of system in place, and I think it’s fair and appropriate and we will continue with it.”
Perry’s remarks came during a chat with reporters after he voted early in the Nov. 3 constitutional amendment election. He voted at the Randalls on Ranch Road 620 near Lohmans Crossing Road.
The governor’s race also came up, and Perry said that U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, his rival in the GOP gubernatorial primary is “having an awful hard time” making the decision of when to step down from her Senate seat.
“But that’s her call,” he said. “There’s lots of votes in Washington, D.C., that she’s missing. Texas needs full-time representation.”
“The Trans Texas Corridor is a dead issue and has been for some time,” Perry said. “If she wants to go back and talk about a 2006 campaign issue, that’s her choice, but I would suggest to you that that didn’t work in 2006 and that’s not going to work in 2010.”
Perry also addressed Texas’ problems with the food stamp application system, which is plagued with backlogs.
Perry, who was joined at the polling place by Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, said he is especially interested in seeing the passage of Prop. 4, which deals with higher education, and Prop. 11, which is about eminent domain.
“Changing the constitution’s no small thing,” Perry said. “I hope no one takes it lightly. This is every bit as important as going to the polls and voting for the men and women who will represent you.”
The photo below by the Statesman’s Jay Janner shows Williams, left, and Perry, exiting Randalls after they voted.
Rising unemployment led to 396,900 Texas adults losing their health insurance between January and August, according to a new report from an advocacy group.
Families USA, which advocates for high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans, said in its report that the state’s average unemployment rate this year through August was 7.1 percent, compared to an average of 4.9 percent in 2008.
The report focuses on the link between unemployment and loss of health insurance; 61.9 percent of Americans under age 65 get health insurance through their job or a family member’s job, the report said.
“The loss of a job is a terrible blow to working families, but when health insurance is lost along with a job, it is a devastating one-two punch,” Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack said in a conference call with reporters today. “The uninsured are less likely to get the care that they need when they need it and they may face a financial catastrophe when medical bills start to pile up.“
Families USA — which supports national health reform legislation — said in its report that the number of uninsured adults under 65 grew by 4 million, bringing the total number of uninsured Americans to more than 50 million. Nationally, the average unemployment rate this year through August was 8.9 percent, compared to an average of 5.8 percent in 2008, the report said.
The report says that Texas had the second-largest number of people who lost health insurance this year (California had the largest). But 36 states and the District of Columbia had a higher unemployment-related percentage-point increase of uninsured adults.
The report used a formula created by The Urban Institute that uses unemployment numbers to calculate the change in the number of uninsured.
See a copy of the report here: http://www.familiesusa.org/assets/pdfs/one-two-punch.pdf
Zaffirini said in an interview that she and Williams will work with Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Tom Suehs on hiring more enrollment workers — as well as training and retaining them — and improving communication between state and local offices.
“Hiring personnel in and of itself will not solve the problem,” Zaffirini said.
The state is not meeting federal food stamp standards, which require applications to be processed within 30 days (and seven for emergency applications). In September, Texas failed to process 41.4 percent of applications by the federal government’s deadline. The federal government — which pays for all the food and half the administrative costs of the program — has told Texas to speed up application processing or risk losing federal funds.
Zaffirini said she told Suehs she wants to see weekly progress reports and a timeline for the hiring.
“We need to ensure that the people who are eligible for the services are receiving them in a timely period,” she said.
Lately, many families have been waiting for months.
Zaffirini said she thinks the state should be collaborating more closely with food banks.
Officials with the Texas Food Bank Network this week sent a letter to federal food stamp officials, saying that programs such as food stamps should not rely on non-profits to address their staffing needs.
“We worry that an over-reliance on comparatively small organizations like ours, while an obvious immediate solution, may divert attention and urgency from the broader, more fundamental failures in our state’s application system,” says the letter from Eric Cooper and Jan Pruitt of the Network to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s William Ludwig.
Also this week, eight Democratic members of the state House sent a letter to Ludwig, urging that the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service “take every possible action to bring Texas into compliance.”
The members who wrote the letter are: Elliott Naishtat of Austin; Sylvester Turner, Jessica Farrar and Garnet Coleman of Houston; Lon Burnam and Marc Veasey of Fort Worth; Rafael Anchia of Dallas and Ruth Jones McClendon of San Antonio. See that letter here: naishtatletter.pdf
Earlier this week, new Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Tom Suehs told me that he doesn’t have the authority to get rid of an asset test for food stamp applicants because it’s state law.
It turns out that the requirement is not in state law.
Federal officials have warned Texas that it needs to speed up application processing or risk losing federal funds. In a letter last month, the officials told Texas to come up with a corrective action plan that includes solutions such as eliminating a fingerprinting requirement and the asset test — which limits the value of assets such as vehicles that applicants can have. Suehs told me that since both are state laws, he’d have to wait until the Legislature is back in town to consider such changes.
The fingerprinting requirement is indeed in state law. But Celia Hagert of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for low- and middle-income Texans, told me that the asset test is not. And Commission officials have confirmed Hagert is right.
However, Commission spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said, Suehs “still would seek legislative guidance before changing that state policy because the Legislature has demonstrated its support for asset tests by placing resource limits in state statute for some of our other programs.”
Earlier this week, we reported on the 10 slowest food stamp offices in Texas.
Now, here’s a list of all of the offices in the state that take, on average, 40 days or longer to process food stamp applications. The number of days refers to how long it takes for the applicant to get an interview. The information is as of Sept. 25, and it’s based on state documents from the Health and Human Services Commission.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees food stamps, requires applications to be processed within 30 days. (The standard is seven days for emergency applications, but this list does not reflect processing of emergency applications). Texas is failing to meet the federal standard. At the end of September, nearly 38,000 applicants were still waiting even though their applications were past due.
None of the slowest offices is in the Austin area (state officials say Central Texas hasn’t been hit as hard by an economy-related surge in applications). By far, the Dallas and Houston areas are the slowest.
Texas has 310 food stamp offices, not including offices that are located in hospitals and other health care facilities. This list has 71 offices, a couple of which are in health care facilities.
UPDATE: Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Commission says that it’s a bit misleading that offices in health care facilities show up on this list. “They’re doing a good job keeping up with their workload, but we’ve sent them cases from other offices that (are) struggling. So the (processing) time looks high for that worker, but it’s because she’s got a stack of cases from other offices on her desk.”
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, today wrote to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, urging him to ensure that Texas improves its food stamp program. The Texas program — now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — is struggling with backlogs, meaning some families are waiting months for assistance.
“We respectfully request additional, immediate action by USDA to improve Texas SNAP performance,” says Doggett’s letter, which is also signed by the other 11 Texas Democrats in Congress. “Without the strongest possible enforcement from the federal government, we are concerned that the State will not take the necessary steps to improve SNAP administration.”
The federal government pays for the food in the program, and federal and state officials split administration costs.
“Needless processing delays are hurting our most vulnerable constituents, draining the resources of our local food banks, and slowing Texas’ economic recovery,” the letter says. “These delays are the product of indifference and the State’s costly, failed experiment with privatization.”
Many state workers started leaving in 2005 in advance of a major privatization effort.
Texas comes in 49th out of 53 states, territories and the District of Columbia in a new federal ranking of how quickly food stamp applications are processed.
The Lone Star state was ahead of Florida, Alaska, Colorado and Guam.
Texas processed 78.18 percent of applications by the federal deadline: 30 days for regular applications and seven days for emergency applications.
At the top of the list, Montana processed 97.97 percent of applications on time, followed by Massachusetts (97.65 percent), Maine (97.04 percent) and West Virginia (96.18 percent).
The data — released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, which oversees food stamps — is from the 2008 budget year. So it doesn’t take into account Texas’ most recent problems with food stamp processing. In September 2009, Texas processed 58.6 percent percent of new applications and 68.9 percent of renewals on time, according to state data.
The Legislative Budget Board this afternoon gave the Health and Human Services Commission permission to hire 250 state workers to enroll Texans in programs such as food stamps and Medicaid.
The commission had requested about 650 more workers. After the initial workers are hired, the board will study whether up to 399 more workers are needed.
Meanwhile, the budget board also directed the commission to immediately fill 400 vacancies.
“In these tough economic times, the state of Texas must do everything in its power to ensure Texas families that truly can’t make it without state assistance get help without delay,” Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said.
The food stamp program is struggling with backlogs and high error rates, and the federal agency that oversees the program has told Texas that if the problems aren’t fixed, the state’s federal funds will be at risk.
Last week, the budget board denied the commission’s request, a decision that a commission spokeswoman described as a clock-stopping move that allowed state leaders to continue discussing a plan. Under a provision in the state budget, last week was the deadline for the budget board or the governor to answer the request; if they had done nothing, the request would have been automatically approved.
The federal government requires applications to be processed within 30 days, but the state is failing to process more than a third of applications by the deadline, according to state data. At the end of August, 38,000 new applicants were waiting for approval even though the deadline had passed, state officials have said.
“The current status of (food stamp) administration in Texas is unacceptable and actions must be taken immediately,” says the letter from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, which administers the food stamp program.
Specifically, the letter says, the state is not complying with federal law on processing applications on time. Applications must be processed within 30 days, but the state is failing to process more than a third of applications by the deadline, according to state data. Processing in the Dallas and Houston areas is especially slow, and in Austin, it’s better than the rest of the state.
Celia Hagert of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for low- and middle-income Texans, called the letter “a warning sterner than we’ve ever seen before” from federal officials.
The letter says that commission officials must produce a corrective action plan within 60 days, and commission spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said the agency will work swiftly to do so.
“We do know that Texans do need and deserve better service now,” Goodman said.
About 2.8 million Texans are in the food stamp program, which is now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The Legislative Budget Board has denied a request from the Health and Human Services Commission to hire about 650 state workers to relieve the state’s food stamp enrollment system, which is struggling with backlogs and errors.
The additional workers could help address both of those problems, now-retired Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins told the budget board and the staff of Gov. Rick Perry in an August letter.
This week was the deadline for the budget board or the governor to decide on the request; if they did nothing, the request would be automatically approved.
In an e-mail yesterday, a budget board senior analyst, Melitta Berger, wrote to commission officials: “This notice is to inform you that (the staffing request) is disapproved. We will continue to work with you to further understand the agency’s needs and to address them in a timely manner.”
Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the commission, called that e-mail “more of a clock-stopping move.”
The request “could still be approved,” Goodman said. “We’re still working with them and other leaders to make sure they have the information they need to fully analyze our request for more staff.”
But Celia Hagert of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for low- and middle-income Texans, said that waiting to hire the workers isn’t fair to families waiting for food stamps.
“We have hundreds of thousands of Texans needing help affording food and caring for their families,” Hagert said. “The clock has run out for these families.”
Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Perry, declined to say whether the governor thinks the staffing request should be approved.
“This is an important issue that still needs to be addressed and we’ll continue to work with the leadership and the (budget board) on this,” Cesinger said.
Texas has received a five-year, $50-million federal grant to help employees of small businesses buy health insurance, state officials said today. The state will chip in 20 percent in matching funds.
Workers earning up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level — about $66,000 for a family of four — would be eligible for the money, which could go toward insurance premiums, co-pays or deductibles.
It would be available to participants of three programs scheduled to begin in the next year or so: Healthy Texas (a state-funded pool that will help small businesses pay for health insurance), TexHealth Coalition (an association of communities, including Central Texas, providing low-cost health insurance to employees of small businesses) and Community First Health Plan (a program for employees of small businesses in the San Antonio area).
“What’s great about this project is that it really stretches limited taxpayer dollars to insure more Texans,” Tom Suehs, the new executive commissioner of the Health and Human Services Commission, said in a statement.
Jon Weizenbaum, deputy commissioner of the Department of Aging and Disability Services, will serve as interim commissioner of the department, state officials said today.
Commissioner Addie Horn retires today, and Weizenbaum starts the interim position tomorrow. Also retiring today is Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins, who is being replaced by Tom Suehs.
Since 2006, Weizenbaum has served as deputy commissioner of the agency that oversees the troubled state institutions for Texans with mental disabilities. State lawmakers this year passed a package of reform measures after a federal investigation found that the 13 institutions — now called state supported living centers — failed to provide adequate care or protect residents from harm.
The department also regulates Texas’ nursing homes, assisted living facilities, hospices and home health care agencies, and hires mostly private groups to run home- and community-based services.
Weizenbaum, a former legislative policy director for the Texas Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, holds master’s degrees from the University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work and the LBJ School of Public Affairs.
Weizenbaum was tapped for the interim position by Hawkins, who consulted with Suehs, state officials said.
Gov. Rick Perry this morning named Thomas Suehs to head the state’s Health and Human Services Commission.
Suehs, 58, who has served as deputy executive commissioner for financial services since 2003, will replace the retiring Albert Hawkins.
As executive commissioner, Suehs will be responsible for overseeing five agencies, 50,000 employees and an annual budget of $30 billion.
“Tom is a knowledgeable and skilled veteran of state government,” Hawkins said. “He has expertise in working with large systems and complex programs. He certainly has the experience to lead our health and human services agencies. He also has the heart. I’m proud to have him as a colleague and a friend, and I know he will be a strong and effective leader.”
Suehs is a former executive director of the Texas Health Care Association and has served as deputy commissioner of the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation.
“I’m grateful to Gov. Perry for the opportunity to serve in such an important role, and I look forward to working with state leaders to meet the social service needs of Texans,” Suehs said. “I’m proud of the people I work with here at our health and human services agencies. We have some of the state’s biggest challenges, but we also have the most dedicated and compassionate employees in the state. It will be an honor to serve with them.”
That was U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul’s message on health care reform today when he spoke to several dozen residents of Westminster Manor, an Austin retirement community.
His staff passed out a jam-packed, multicolored chart (see above) that Republicans created about House Democrats’ health plan.
“You can see how convoluted” the plan is, said McCaul, an Austin Republican. “It’s a monster.”
He criticized the proposed legislation’s end-of-life counseling, though he distanced himself somewhat from other critics’ claims that government panels would make decisions on euthanasia. He called the proposed counseling mandatory; however, it would be optional.
“I’m always concerned when we have the government making life and death decisions for you, medical decisions for you, telling you you have to take end-of-life counseling,” McCaul said. “You’re going down a slippery slope — I’m not saying it’s euthanasia, but you’re going down a very slippery slope of how much power are we going to give the government in our lives in terms of our medical decisions and our health?”
When doctors and patients gathered tonight at the Texas Medical Association to discuss health care reform, Dr. Robert Gunby, a past president of the association, told the audience at the beginning that he hoped the event wouldn’t be as rowdy as he’s heard some recent town hall meetings have been.
“Please, don’t hit us,” he asked the audience, perhaps only half-jokingly.
Though attendees had strong opinions — and didn’t entirely obey instructions to refrain from discussing specific legislation — they listened to each other.
Many audience members got the chance to talk briefly about what they like about today’s health care system and what they want to see changed. Doctors talked about headaches with insurance companies, and patients spoke of living with breast cancer and diabetes, the high cost of health insurance premiums and what it’s like not having insurance.
Sherry Ellexson of northwest Austin talked about how she likes her doctor and doesn’t want her insurance taken away. She said of health reform legislation moving through Congress: “There are very scary things in this bill.”
But Sylvia Ramos of the union Communication Workers of America, said the health reform being pushed by President Barack Obama makes sense. “It provides health care for all Americans — not just a selected few,” the Austinite said before the meeting.
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, who has said he was mobbed outside a South Austin grocery store Saturday by people coached to do so by the Republican Party and Ron Paul Libertarians, is set to make a health care-related announcement about improving care for veterans this afternoon at an Austin event to to which the public is welcome.
It’s scheduled for 2 p.m. at the Montopolis Veterans Outreach Clinic, 2901 Montopolis.
Meantime, a reader reacted to Doggett’s characterization of the people who surrounded Doggett Saturday by creating the satirical photo below.
“It’s mocking the fact that Doggett called his constituents a ‘mob,’” said Dean Wright of Austin, a self-described Doggett constituent and Austin “tea-party” activist who has a business designing and building circuit boards for computers. “And now the (Democratic National Comittee) refers to all opposed to the health care bill, as the ‘mob.’” (See a CNN.com post on the DNC’s description here. The DNC “mob” ad is below.)
Wright, who hopes to attend today’s event, said he doesn’t expect a confrontation quite like the shouting scene that ensued Saturday, though he said Doggett will be asked hard questions and people could react strongly to answers they don’t consider truthful.
More than 50 people gathered in downtown Austin today to protest President Barack Obama’s proposed health care reforms. There were similar events today throughout the country.
Holding signs that said things like “No socialized medicine” and “Obama Care is a death sentence,” the Austin protesters stood outside the federal building where U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, a supporter of the health reform proposal, has an office.
“There is a way to reform without totally destroying what is good about our health care,” said Mary Strong, an Austin nurse.
The gatherings were organized by the Tea Party Patriots, which organized rallies earlier this year protesting big government.
The photo below shows Tracy Forester, right, of Lockhart, and other protesters.
Every month, 24,070 Texans are losing their health care coverage, according to a report released today by an advocacy group.
The report by Families USA, which advocates for quality, affordable health coverage for all Americans, comes as Congress is weighing health care reforms pushed by President Barack Obama.
The report says that between January 2008 and December 2010, 6.9 million Americans lost or will have lost health coverage, including 866,580 Texans.
“The longer Congress waits to act, the more families will lose coverage,” Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, told reporters in a conference call.
Though the economy is a factor, the main cause of the loss of health coverage is the rising cost of health insurance premiums, Pollack said.
Between 1999 and 2008, the annual family premium more than doubled from $5,791 to $12,680, the report said. That leads to families being unable to afford coverage — and to employers passing more costs along to employees or deciding not to offer coverage at all, the report says.
A small group rallied in front of U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s downtown Austin office Thursday afternoon in support of President Barack Obama’s health care plan.
The group also presented Hutchison’s staff with a petition, asking her to support the health care reform plan.
Hutchison has opposed the plan.
UPDATED: In an emailed statement, Hutchison said the president’s plan would damage the quality of American health care, rather than bring about the desired reform. She also said his approach could cost the health care industry more jobs.
The president’s plan includes what he calls a public health insurance option for all Americans.
“This is our best chance for health care reform,” said Ken Chambers, who organized the rally through MoveOn.org. About 50 people showed up at the short rally.
Chambers, an Austin-area writer, said he believes the public health insurance option is “essential to meaningful health care reform.”
Maria Luisa Rudaneta, a retired University of Texas-San Antonio professor, said the exploitation of Americans by insurance agencies and pharmaceutical companies is “sinful.”
“We have to begin to demand action from the elected politicians,” she said.
This gathering was one of several organized across the state at Hutchison’s offices. Rallies also took place in San Antonio and Dallas. Activists also scheduled rallies at offices of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. Both Hutchison and Cornyn have opposed the plan.
Similar protests organized by MoveOn.org, a political advocacy group, are taking place across the country.
In legislative hearings past, they had been grilled and chided, in what were sometimes … well, unpleasant.
But the tone today was laudatory, as retiring state Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins and Adelaide “Addie” Horn, the retiring commissioner of the Department of Aging and Disability Services, were honored for their service by the Texas Senate.
Honored with a standing ovation, in fact.
“This is nearing the end of an amazing professional journey,” state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, chairman of the Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee, said of Hawkins.
Of Horn, Nelson said, “she was a tireless advocate of people with disabilities.”
A Fort Worth native, Hawkins is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where he worked his way through school working as a postal worker.
Starting in state government in 1978 as a program analyst for the Legislative Budget Board, Hawkins worked his way up to become budget director under Gov. George W. Bush in the 1990s, then served in Washington after Bush was elected president in 2000.
“This state is a much better place for your service,” observed Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan.
State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, who acknowledged being one of Hawkins’ biggest critics, applauded the executive commissioner’s steadfast professionalism and his unwavering commitment to Texas’ needy.
Sen. Mario Gallegos, D-Houston, echoed the sentiment of others, when he told Hawkins: “I gave you a hard time, but it was all with respect.”
Horn started out on the staff of the Austin-Travis County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center, and later served as director of programs for the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation.
She worked in the private sector in New Mexico and Indiana before returning to Texas a director of long-term care services for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. In 2004, she became deputy commissioner of DADS and has served as commissioner of the 15,000-employee agency since 2006.
“Be really proud of what you have done,” Odgen told Horn.
State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, and state Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, today called on Gov. Rick Perry to add the Children’s Health Insurance Program to the agenda for the special legislative session that begins Wednesday.
Shapleigh called Texas “ground zero in America’s health care crisis,” adding that one in six uninsured children live in the Lone Star State.
“Now it’s time for Rick Perry to take responsibility and put CHIP in the call for the special session,” Shapleigh said at a Capitol press conference.
Perry has called the Legislature into session to consider three issues: the reauthorization of the functions of several state agencies; approval of construction bonds; and extending the authority of the Texas Department of Transportation to enter into agreements with private companies to build roads.
“The governor has announced what will be addressed this special session and doesn’t intend to expand the call,” said Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Perry.
Addie Horn, who as commissioner of the Department of Aging and Disability Services oversees the troubled state institutions for Texans with mental disabilities, announced today she is retiring Aug. 31.
Horn, who has led the department since 2006, started her career as a direct-care worker at Austin State School and spent three decades in government jobs.
“It has been my privilege, and one that I have never taken for granted, to have served individuals who are aging and have disabilities,” Horn said.
The state schools, newly renamed state supported living centers, have been under scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice, which in December told Gov. Rick Perry that the 13 facilities fail to protect residents from harm. In March, Corpus Christi police said that employees of the institution there organized fights among residents. Texas has reached a settlement with the federal agency.
Cecilia Fedorov, a spokeswoman for the Department of Aging and Disability Services, said Horn’s decision to retire is not related to the issues at the state schools.
“She’s actually been contemplating this for quite a while,” Fedorov said. “She just feels it’s time to move to the next phase of her life and let someone else take the reins.”
Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins, who is also retiring Aug. 31, did not immediately name an interim replacement for Horn.
“Addie’s tenure as DADS Commissioner has been one of strong leadership on behalf of individuals who need her agency’s services, no matter the setting or disability,” Hawkins said in a statement.
The Health and Human Services Commission today tentatively awarded Maximus a three-year contract to run call centers enrolling Texans in public assistance such as food stamps and Medicaid.
Maximus has already been performing these services on an interim basis as part of a contract that expires Dec. 31. The call centers are in Austin, San Antonio, Midland and Athens.
Geoff Wool, a spokesman for the commission, could not immediately provide the cost of the tentative deal. “That’s subject to negotiations that are going on,” he said.
However, he did say that since Sept. 1, 2008, Texas has paid Maximus $55.3 million for similar services.
Maximus was a subcontractor to Accenture LLP, which the state hired in 2005 to run the call centers and manage the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The state and Accenture agreed to part ways in 2007, ending a deal that was originally worth $899 million over five years (it was later scaled back to $543 million). Then Maximus took over.
Lawmakers envisioned the call centers in 2003 as a way to modernize the enrollment system by giving Texans the option to sign up by phone and online instead of just in person. The privately-run call centers were also expected to save the state money, but the savings didn’t materialize.
The new Maximus contract needs approval from federal officials who oversee the food stamp and Medicaid programs.
One other vendor submitted a bid for the new contract, Wool said: Affiliated Computer Services of Dallas.
In a letter to Gov. Rick Perry today, half the members of the Texas House asked him to allow the Legislature to consider expanding the Children’s Health Insurance Program during an upcoming special session.
“A Special Session provides a critical opportunity to address the needs of Texas’ 1.5 million uninsured children,” says the letter from 71 Democrats and four Republicans. “We hope you’ll join us in ensuring that seeing to their health needs does not remain ‘unfinished business.’”
During a special session, the Legislature may only consider topics the governor puts on an agenda known as the call. Getting CHIP on the call is a long shot.
Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Perry, said: “At this point, no decision has been made on what may or may not be added to the call.”
However, during the regular legislative session that ended June 1, Perry told reporters that he would not consider having the Legislature take up CHIP during a special session because “that is not what I consider to be a piece of legislation that has the vast support of the people of the state of Texas.”
Perry has not said when the special session will be.
Gov. Rick Perry today vetoed a child-abuse bill that critics said would have violated families’ rights.
The action followed a veto campaign by a coalition of conservative, libertarian and family-rights organizations that prompted thousands of Texans to call and write the governor.
Supporters of Senate Bill 1440 said it would have helped abuse investigations by clarifying the criteria state officials must meet to get a court order to enter a family’s house, transport a child or review children’s medical records.
But opponents said it would have given Child Protective Services too much power, allowing state investigators to enter people’s homes without evidence of abuse.
Perry had received 17,373 calls and letters against the measure and 455 supporting it as of 4:30 p.m. Friday, said Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for the governor.
This week, state Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, the House sponsor of the bill, wrote a letter to Perry asking him to reject the bill, saying that the measure turned out to be more controversial than he expected and needs further study.
“My concern is that the bill is overreaching,” Madden said in an interview.
Perry had similar concerns. He wrote in his veto statement that a recent court decision created uncertainty that “must be addressed. Senate Bill No. 1440, however, overreaches and may not give due consideration to the Fourth Amendment rights of a parent or guardian.” Perry directed state officials to study the issue.
Senate Bill 1440 is by Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin. The language in question was originally part of another Watson bill, Senate Bill 1064, that was added on as an amendment.
“Unfortunately,” Watson said, “Governor Perry listened to bad advice, ignored sound, just policy and chose to veto a bill that would have helped protect the children of Texas from abuse and neglect.”
A lawsuit filed in district court in Harris County by lawyers for Austinite Gloria Culpepper accuses Willow River Farms and its director of failing to properly supervise residents and seeks unspecified damages. Culpepper, whose 42-year-old daughter no longer lives at the facility, says her daughter was assaulted by a fellow resident.
The Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation, a Houston nonprofit that runs Willow River Farms, is also a defendant in the suit.
The center’s executive director, Eva Aguirre, said: “We strongly disagree with the allegations.” She declined to comment further “because it is an active lawsuit.”
The lawsuit says that the facility adopted a new policy in 2008 in which employees were not supposed to interfere with residents who chose to have sex. The suit says that “as a result of this new policy, residents at (Willow River Farms) began engaging in sexual intercourse not only in their bedrooms but also in public areas around the facility … it appears that many of the residents would gather in groups and have sex with multiple partners at the same time.” It says that a former employee of the facility described the atmosphere “as ‘one big orgy’ following the implementation of the new policy.”
Gov. Rick Perry has signed House Bill 2154, which will repay medical-school loans for doctors who agree to practice in underserved areas of the state.
The legislation pays for the program by changing the way smokeless tobacco is taxed. That tax tweak also provides a significant portion of the money for a small-business tax cut.
The loan repayment program has the “potential to bring basic medical care to millions of Texans in the inner cities and border and rural areas of our state,” said Tom Banning, CEO of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians.
State Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, said today that he is leading a group of Texans on a trip to Washington next week to urge the state’s members of Congress to support President Barack Obama’s health care plan. State Rep. Norma Chávez, D-El Paso, will also go, her office said.
The trip is organized by a group called Health Care for America Now, which is arranging similar trips for delegations from around the country. The organization is a national coalition of more than 1,000 groups that support Obama’s plan, including the AFL-CIO, Children’s Defense Fund Action Council and the NAACP.
Ann S. Fuelberg, executive director of the Employees Retirement System of Texas, is being considered for the state’s top health and human services job, according to Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry.
However, Mary Jane Wardlow, a spokeswoman for Fuelberg, said Fuelberg “is not currently a candidate” for executive commissioner of the Health and Human Services Commission. Wardlow said this evening that Fuelberg was traveling and unavailable for an interview.
Castle said other candidates — including Austin lawyer Lowell Keig, Washington, D.C., neurosurgeon Guy Clifton, and New Yorker Betty Adams, a former federal health and human services official — are also still in the running to replace Albert Hawkins, who is retiring later this year after six years as executive commissioner. The executive commissioner is appointed by the governor.
Gov. Rick Perry this afternoon signed into law a bill that increases oversight and security at state institutions for Texans with mental disabilities and at community homes that serve a similar population.
“Whether these folks live in our state facilities or in therapeutic community settings, we’re all obligated to show that basic human decency for those individuals so that they can live and learn and grow,” Perry said before signing the bill at the Capitol. “Our current system had some serious shortcomings.”
Senate Bill 643 by Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, and Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, calls for an independent ombudsman for the 13 institutions, requires video cameras in common areas at the facilities, and changes the names of the institutions from state schools to state supported living centers.
Perry designated the legislation an emergency after the U.S. Department of Justice reported in December that the institutions that are home to nearly 5,000 Texans fail to provide adequate care. In March, Corpus Christi police said employees of the institution there organized fights among residents.
Perry said he asked his chief of staff, Jay Kimbrough, to find solutions “to problems that have been bedeviling this state for a long time and I think we have done that.”
The governor, who was back at work with his right arm in a sling two days after breaking his collarbone while biking, was joined by Rose, Nelson, and family members of Texans with disabilities. Perry, who is right-handed, signed the bill with his left hand.
Perry told reporters that his bike accident happened when he went down a hill that looked a lot less steep than it was.
“I’m back at work and veto pen is ready,” Perry said.
A politically potent coalition of conservative, libertarian and family-rights organizations are demanding that Gov. Rick Perry veto a bill they claim would allow state investigators to short-circuit parental rights as they investigate child abuse cases.
But supporters of the measure are just adamant that the bill does no such thing, and should be signed into law.
At a Capitol rally this afternoon, representatives from the Texas Center for Family Rights, Texas Eagle Forum, the Free Market Foundation, the Texas Home School Coalition, the Libertarian Party of Texas, the Campaign for Liberty, the Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas, Texans for Accountable Government and the Parent Guidance Center, among others, accused supporters of sneaking the measure onto another bill at the close of the legislative session in May.
“Against a parent’s wishes and without prior notice or the ability for the parent to have a (court) hearing, a judge — based upon an anonymous accusation that fails to provide probable cause — can order a strip search or psychological examination of a child, the seizure and transportation of a child to an undisclosed location or the seizure of the child’s medical records,” said Austin resident Brian Russell, member of Texas Eagle Forum and a member of the State Republican Executive Committee.
“(The bill) violates clear constitutional standards and and leaves even good families open to unreasonable and invasive government intrusion.”
Supporters were just as insistent the measure does not such thing.
“(It) does not eliminate any rights parents have and does nothing to change the standards or protections regarding removals,” said Diana Martinez, director of public policy and education for the Dallas-based Texas Association for the Protection of Children. “Whatever protections parents had before regarding removal of a child, they still have … It actually provides for more protections for parents.”
The House adjourned just before 6 p.m. today — the final day of the 2009 legislative session — without voting on an expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which children’s advocates had made a top priority.
“CHIP is dead,” said State Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, a supporter of expanding the program.
Dukes said she was disappointed that her colleagues didn’t make the effort to massage parliamentary rules for CHIP as they did today for a “sunset” safety-net bill that keeps agencies operating.
“They changed the rules for what they desired,” Dukes said. “But no rules were suspended for those children in great need.”
The measure would have added some 80,000 children to the program by allowing certain families that earn more than the income limit to pay to join. The income limit is now $44,100 for a family of four; under the proposal, families of four earning up to $66,150 would have been able to join CHIP by paying monthly premiums. (In the current program, families pay an annual fee but no monthly premiums).
State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said today that he’s holding out hope that a measure to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program can survive.
“I think it’s a possibility,” he said.
Technically, it’s too late for the House to vote on the CHIP measure, but there could be an exception if two-thirds of members present vote to consider it.
There’s also talk on the House floor that the CHIP measure could be linked to the “sunset” safety-net bill, which keeps agencies operating. The House adjourned last night without voting on that measure, and there was speculation that could lead to a special session.
“If you’re going to recognize someone to bring up the sunset bill, you need to recognize someone to bring up the CHIP bill,” said Rep. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston.
But Eiland added that no deal has been reached. “Discussions are all over the place,” he said.
The CHIP measure, which yesterday got approval from the Senate after emerging from near-death, could add some 80,000 children to CHIP by allowing certain families who earn more than the income limit to pay to join.
Getting two-thirds of House members to vote to take up children’s health insurance seems like a steep obstacle considering CHIP expansion didn’t have the support of two-thirds of members when it passed the House earlier this month. The vote was 87-55.
But that was a different version of the CHIP bill. Under the measure the Senate approved yesterday, families of four earning between $44,100 and $66,150 would be able to pay to join CHIP.
It does not include a provision that would also allow families of four earning between $66,150 and $88,200 to pay the full cost of CHIP to join. That provision, which was in the CHIP bill the House approved earlier this month, “was a sticking point for people,” said Coleman, the author of the House version of the CHIP proposal.
Gov. Rick Perry has said that he “would probably not be in favor” of expanding CHIP.
A bill that would expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program has emerged from near-death again.
It was attached to a child welfare bill late last night by members of a House and Senate conference committee.
For the CHIP measure to survive, the new version of that child welfare bill — S.B. 2080 by Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio — would have to be approved by the House and Senate.
The CHIP measure is expected to add some 80,000 children to CHIP by allowing families that earn more than the current income limit pay to enroll.
The House today passed a resolution approving the state’s settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over the troubled institutions for Texans with mental disabilities.
Under the agreement, Texas will have to improve health care and more quickly investigate reports of abuse and neglect at the 13 facilities known as state schools.
The settlement required legislative approval because it calls for spending $112 million in state funds over five years. The resolution has already been approved by the Senate. It now goes to the governor’s desk.
The agreement is the culmination of an investigation by the Department of Justice that began in 2005 at the Lubbock State School after reports of abuse and neglect and was later expanded to include the 12 other state schools.
Gov. Rick Perry today indicated that he opposes a plan to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program, putting in jeopardy of a veto a measure that has been a top priority this session for children’s advocates.
But the CHIP bill appears unlikely to make it to his desk at all. The House today rejected a Senate attempt to attach it to an unrelated measure.
Talking with reporters, Perry was asked if he’d consider having the Legislature take up CHIP if he calls a special session. He said no.
When asked why not, Perry said: “I would probably not be in favor of that expansion even if it came to my desk. I think the members know that. That is not what I consider to be a piece of legislation that has the vast support of the people of the state of Texas.”
The Texas Senate just a few minutes ago approved a resolution ratifying a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over abuse allegations at state schools.
The vote on Senate Concurrent Resolution was 31-0.
Calling the confirmed cases of past abuse “unexcusable,” state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, said the settlement and accompanying reforms will ensure that conditions at state schools for the developmentally disabled will never revert.
The Senate earlier in the day approved $48.1 million for reforms to curb any future abuses of state school residents.
The authors of a measure that would ban trans fats at restaurants say the proposal is all but dead.
The ban, approved by the Senate, was scheduled for debate in the House over the weekend but looks unlikely to come up before a legislative deadline tonight.
The Senate author, Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, said he’s looking for a bill he can attach it to, but “if we had a vehicle, we’d have put it on by now.”
He and the House sponsor, Rep. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, both vowed to bring the proposal back next session.
“The case for banning trans fats is compelling,” Shapleigh said. “Trans fats cause serious adverse health problems.”
Texas would have to improve health care and more quickly investigate reports of abuse and neglect at its institutions for people with mental disabilities under an agreement between state and federal officials.
The agreement, which was made public today, is the culmination of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice that began in 2005 in Lubbock after reports of abuse and neglect and was later expanded to include the 12 other institutions known as state schools. The department told Gov. Rick Perry in December that it had found system-wide problems and that the facilities failed to provide adequate care and to protect residents from harm.
“The abuse that has taken place is inexcusable — it does not reflect the good will and compassion of the people of Texas,” said state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, chairwoman of a Senate panel that examined the agreement today in a joint hearing with a House panel. “I think we are all ready for a new beginning.”
State schools would hire 1,160 more workers to comply with the five-year, $112 million agreement, according to Texas officials. However, neither the specific number of workers needed nor the cost estimate are spelled out in the agreement. There are now more than 12,000 employees at the state schools, which are home to nearly 5,000 Texans.
Though part of the point of reaching a settlement was to avoid a legal battle with the Department of Justice, the federal agency still plans to sue the state in U.S. District Court in Austin. State and federal officials have agreed to that arrangement so that agreement would be legally binding. The plan is for the suit to be dismissed once state and federal officials pick monitors to oversee the state schools’ compliance with the agreement.
The bulk of those would be direct-care workers, said Cecilia Fedorov, a spokeswoman for the Department Aging and Disability Services. The workers would also include 27 psychiatrists, 11 clinical pharmacists and eight dentists, according to the department Web site.
There are now between 12,000 and 13,000 employees at the 13 institutions known as state schools, Fedorov said.
State Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, has said the plan — which has been approved by the Department of Justice but still needs an OK from the Texas Legislature — will cost $112 million over five years. Nelson and Rose today filed a resolution approving the agreement.
A statement from Nelson and state Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs said that “to make the agreement legally binding and monitor compliance, all parties agreed to the filing of a lawsuit” in U.S. District Court in Travis County. More details will be available tomorrow at a joint hearing of committees that Nelson and Rose lead: the House Committee on Human Services and the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services.
State Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, and State Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, today filed a resolution that would approve the state’s agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice on the institutions for Texans with mental disabilities.
The agreement, which needs legislative approval, calls for spending $112 million over five years to improve health care and staffing at the 13 institutions known as state schools. The facilities have been under scrutiny by the Department of Justice, which told Gov. Rick Perry in December that they failed to provide adequate health care and to protect their nearly 5,000 residents from harm.
The resolution says in part: “The State of Texas is committed to continue improving the care of its state school residents, including the implementation of measures that protect our residents and the provision of quality health services and increased oversight and surveillance, to promote a better living environment for the state’s most vulnerable citizens.”
It continues: “The State of Texas seeks to avoid inconvenience and disruption to state school operations due to a prolonged investigation and protracted litigation over the state mental retardation facilities; now, therefore, be it resolved that the 81st Legislature of the State of Texas hereby approve the System-wide Settlement Agreement.”
State and federal officials have agreed on a $112 million, five-year plan for the troubled institutions for Texans with mental disabilities, according to two key lawmakers.
The plan requires enhanced staffing ratios, independent monitors and improved medical and psychological care, said state Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, and state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound.
“Whether or not the Department of Justice told us, we needed to be doing these things anyway,” Nelson, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, said in an interview. “I’m very pleased and I’m just hoping and expecting that these facilities will very quickly get up to our standards that we’re setting forth.”
The 13 institutions known as state schools have been under scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Justice, which told Gov. Rick Perry in December that they failed to provide adequate health care and to protect residents from harm. In March, Corpus Christi police said employees of the state school there had been organizing fights among residents.
Nearly 5,000 Texans live in state schools.
The Senate committee and the House Committee on Human Services, which Rose leads, are scheduled to meet in a joint session Friday to discuss details of the plan. The Legislature must approve the settlement since it requires spending state money. Rose and Nelson said they plan to introduce a resolution tomorrow approving the agreement.
About $45 million would have to be spent in the next two years, Nelson said.
“Litigating this further is not in the best interest of those residents,” Rose said. “Getting the dollars into improved care is.”
David Morales, Texas’ deputy attorney general for civil litigation, told Rose and Nelson in a letter late Wednesday that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder approved the settlement.
The House and Senate have both passed legislation — designated an emergency by Perry — that would create an office of independent ombudsman for state schools and would add video surveillance in common areas.
The Texas House today gave tentative approval to a bill that seeks to strengthen school health advisory councils. But an attempt to tack on a requirement for sex education failed.
Senate Bill 283 would require school health advisory councils — which are groups of parents and community members who advise districts on health curriculum — to meet at least four times a year and to make formal recommendations to the local school board.
Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, proposed amending the bill to say that if schools teach about contraception, that the curriculum include “only medically accurate and age-appropriate information.”
His amendment — which he said was an attempt to address Texas’ high teen pregnancy rate — was killed on a point of order.
The Texas House today gave final approval to Senate Bill 476, which seeks to increase the role of nurses in hospital staffing decisions.
It would require that 60 percent of the members of a hospital’s nurse staffing committee be nurses. And it would prohibit mandatory overtime for hospital nurses in most cases.
The bill’s author, Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, said the proposal is a way to retain nurses at a time when Texas is dealing with a nursing shortage.
“At a time when our state is in dire need of nurses, we cannot afford to lose good hospital nurses due to mandatory overtime and grueling work schedules,” Nelson said. “This legislation will help retain bedside nurses and ensure that they have a voice in issues such as nurse-patient ratios, work schedules and other issues affecting patient care.”
The bill, sponsored in the House by Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, is backed by the Texas Nurses Association.
The House and the Senate have to work out minor differences in their versions of the proposal before the measure could go to the governor’s desk.
Critics have said the measure doesn’t make significant changes. Members of the National Nurses Organizing Committee - Texas have backed different legislation that would set minimum requirements for nurse-to-patient staffing ratios. That ratio legislation has stalled in committee.
Howard, who has worked a critical care nurse, has said that unlike mandated ratios, S.B. 476 takes into account the unique needs of each patient and hospital.
State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, author of a proposal to ban smoking at indoor workplaces statewide, today declared the bill dead.
He’s holding a press conference later today about the end of the effort.
Cyclist Lance Armstrong was among those pushing the ban.
“Big tobacco spent millions to kill smoke-free legislation and they got to enough of
our legislators to win this round,” Armstrong said in a statement.
Armstrong’s statement continued: “We are not intimidated by big tobacco and we will not give up.”
The measure passed out of a Senate committee, and a weaker version passed out of a House committee, but the proposal hasn’t made it to the House floor or Senate floor this session.
The Texas House today tentatively approved a measure that seeks to increase oversight of the state’s troubled institutions for people with mental disabilities.
Senate Bill 643, which has already passed the Senate, calls for an independent ombudsman to monitor the 13 institutions known as state schools. It also calls for video cameras in common areas. And it seeks to change the name of state schools — which are residences, not schools — to “state supported living centers” (the Senate version would change the name to “state developmental centers”).
Gov. Rick Perry designated fixing state schools as a legislative emergency following a December report by the U.S. Department of Justice that said Texas’ institutions fail to provide adequate health care and to protect residents from harm.
The Texas House today gave final approval to a measure that would expand the Children’s Heath Insurance Program by allowing certain families who earn more than the current income limit to pay to join the program. The vote was 87-55.
The measure could add some 80,000 children to CHIP. It now heads to the Senate, which has already passed a similar measure.
Yesterday, the House tacked onto the CHIP bill a major Medicaid proposal that would add children to Medicaid by expanding the enrollment period from six months to 12. But today, representatives took the Medicaid measure off the CHIP bill.
Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins today notified Gov. Rick Perry he plans to retire, according to the commission.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to have served with so many state leaders and legislators who share a passion for public service,” Hawkins said in a statement. “It has been an honor.”
Perry in 2003 named Hawkins to head the commission. In that role, Hawkins oversees five agencies, 50,000 employees and a $25 billion total annual budget.
“Albert Hawkins has been a quiet but powerful force in state government for decades,” Perry said in a statement. “His budget expertise is renowned, and he has brought compassion and a commitment to quality to every job he’s had. We are going to miss his leadership.”
Texas and the U.S. Department of Justice have reached a tentative agreement on the state’s troubled institutions for people with mental disabilities, according to a state representative.
The agreement requires legislative approval, said the representative, Abel Herrero, D-Robstown.
“It’s a proposal that the state feels addresses the issues raised in the DOJ report,” Herrero said, referring to a December report by the federal agency that said the institutions fail to protect residents from harm.
U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s gubernatorial campaign tonight took a shot at how Gov. Rick Perry has handled Texas’ troubled institutions for people with mental disabilities.
The comments came as video footage became public showing what police have said were fights among residents of Corpus Christi State School, one of 13 such residential institutions.
“The fight clubs … are a sad chapter in Texas history and further proof of Rick Perry’s failed leadership as Governor of this state,” Texans for Kay Campaign Manager Rick Wiley said in a written statement.
Meanwhile, Perry, who’s expected to face Hutchison in the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary, called the fights “totally reprehensible” and vowed that those involved “will have the heft of our law put upon them, and appropriately so.”
Wiley said that Perry has long known that the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating the institutions.
“Since then, the problem has only gotten worse and Perry has done nothing to address it,” Wiley said. “All Texans deserve better than this appalling failure of leadership but specifically those who are the most vulnerable among us.”
Today, after visiting with representatives on the floor of the Texas House, Perry told reporters that the fights are “not acceptable behavior in any environment but particularly in a place where you’re supposed to be protecting citizens” of the state.
The Texas House today gave final approval to a measure that would increase oversight of certain youth camps.
State Rep. Valinda Bolton, D-Austin, filed the bill because of the January death of 11-year-old Brianna Plehn at a Spicewood horse camp.
More than 600 short-term camps — such as weekend soccer camps or daylong horseback riding camps — would be newly licensed and inspected under the measure, according to an estimate by the Department of State Health Services. The department already licenses more than 500 youth camps.
The House vote was 81-66. The measure now goes to the Senate.
In January, Brianna and five other children were riding in the bed of a pickup truck driven by horse camp owner Lynda Mescher, when the truck rolled over, authorities have said. Brianna was pronounced dead at the scene.
Bolton has said that Mescher had been doing doughnuts — driving in circles — when the truck flipped at Grelle Recreation Area in Burnet County.
Mescher was indicted by a Burnet County grand jury last week on charges of manslaughter and injury to a child in connection with the incident, according to the district attorney’s office.
Some of the video footage of employees of Corpus Christi State School encouraging residents with mental disabilities to fight each other was released by a judge to a lawyer whose client is suing the state over the fights, police Capt. Tim Wilson said.
Before you click, think about whether you want to watch and hear people shoving each other and wrestling while others laugh. The images include footage of one person pressing a pillow over the face of another. You may find the images disturbing.
The Texas House and Senate have passed a journalist shield law, so perhaps it was only a matter of time before lawmakers asked reporters for something in return.
State Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, on Monday spoke at a press conference to draw attention to the fact that a Medicaid bill of his is stuck in the House Calendars Committee. His House Bill 1541 would expand the federal-state health insurance program in Texas by allowing low-income families to stay enrolled for a full year rather than having to re-apply every six months.
And he wants the media to help.
“We need the press to be a vital part of this,” Turner told reporters. “Because let me just say this. We dealt with the shields law this session. On its way to the governor to be signed, OK? All of us voted for the shields law. It is on the governor’s desk to be signed. We did that. Not just for the media, because it was the right thing to do. Now we’re asking the media, the business community and others to do the right thing for Texas children.”
Sure, maybe this blog post is just doing what Turner wanted — giving his proposal media attention.
But we thought it was worth pointing out how, to make the pitch, he evoked the shield law, which would give reporters some protection from revealing confidential sources and notes in court.
Note to Turner: Even before you brought up the shield law, we thought your proposal, which could add an estimated 258,000 children to Medicaid, was newsworthy.
The Senate Committee on Health and Human Services today approved a statewide smoking ban proposal, sending it on to the full Senate. The vote was 5-3.
The ban, which has been touted by Lance Armstrong, would ban smoking at indoor workplaces in Texas, including bars and restaurants.
The version that the committee approved was stricter than the one that passed out of a House panel, which would exempt certain bars and would not apply to counties with fewer than 115,000 residents.
It’s “a much stronger bill” than what the House panel passed, said the bill’s Senate author, Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston.
“There’s a lot of money on the other side,” Ellis said. “Big Tobacco is trying to kill this bill.”
Smoke-Free Texas, a coalition of groups supporting the ban, commended the Senate panel’s action.
“Smoke-Free Texas is confident there is significant legislative support to pass this bill in the coming weeks and prevent thousands of Texans from becoming ill or even dying from secondhand smoke exposure,” said Jeff Knisley of the American Lung Association, a member of the coalition.
Twenty-five states have smoke-free laws that the coalition considers comprehensive.
See the committee meeting, pretty much in its entirety, below. Things move quickly this late in the legislative session.
The House Committee on State Affairs today approved a scaled-back version of a statewide indoor smoking ban.
Under the measure approved 8-4, certain bars would be exempt, and the ban would not apply to counties with fewer than 115,000 residents. Austin’s smoking ban would not be affected.
Under the original proposal, smoking would have been banned in indoor workplaces, including restaurants and bars.
Rep. Myra Crownover, R-Denton, author of the measure, said the changes “are not acceptable, but it’s a vehicle to get this through.”
“Now,” she said, “all eyes are on the Senate,” where the measure is pending in committee.
The measure has already passed the House. It now goes to the full Senate.
Critics of the proposal say parents should make decisions on their children’s use of tanning salons, while supporters say it’s a way to prevent skin cancer.
The last child remaining in state custody as a result of the state’s raid last year on a West Texas ranch owned by a polygamist sect will soon leave foster care, state officials said today.
This morning, State District Judge Barbara Walther approved the girl’s placement with a relative, effective May 12, said Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Department of Family and Protective Services.
“We will continue to monitor her progress in this new placement,” Crimmins said.
On April 3, 2008, Texas officials entered Yearning for Zion Ranch, from which they would eventually take 439 children and scatter them around the state in foster care. The Texas Supreme Court later ruled that the state had overreached in removing the children, and all but one have been returned to their families.
The sect is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The Texas Senate today approved a measure that would allow certain families earning more than the income limit for the Children’s Health Insurance Program to pay to join.
Under the proposal, families earning between the current income limit ($44,100 for a family of four) and a certain ceiling ($66,150 for a family of four) would pay monthly premiums on a sliding scale according to their income. For example, a family of four would pay $88 to $120 a month.
The measure, Senate Bill 841, would cost about $38 million over two years, according to the Legislative Budget Board. It is expected to add some 80,000 children to CHIP, which now has about 466,000 enrolled.
Children with certain disabilities would be able to join the Medicaid program even if their parents earn more than the income limit under a measure approved by the Texas House today.
The families would pay to join the federal-state health insurance program on a sliding scale depending on their income. Families of four could earn up to $66,150 and still qualify for the new program.
The measure has already been approved by the Senate, so it now goes to the governor.
The House author of the proposal, Rep. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, said he expects some 5,000 children to join the program. Children may be eligible if they have cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, or severe autism.
Lucio said children with such disabilities need specialized therapies that many families cannot afford. He said some parents end up divorcing or asking for a pay cut at work so that their income would be low enough to qualify for Medicaid, which covers the therapies.
“That’s not what we want,” said Lucio, who filed a similar measure in 2007 that did not pass. “What we all want is for (the children) to meet their highest potential.”
The program is expected to cost the state about $19 million over two years.
The Texas Senate today tentatively approved a scaled-back version of a proposal that originally would have required pregnant women who seek an abortion to first get an ultrasound.
The new version requires that a woman be offered the ultrasound, but it does not require that the ultrasound be performed.
With 16 swine flu cases confirmed in Texas, including the nation’s first death from the virus, Gov. Rick Perry today issued a statewide disaster proclamation.
“Texans can be confident that we’re making every effort to stay ahead of the curve, to keep them and their families as safe as possible,” Perry told reporters today.
He said that though the virus has not been detected in every county, the proclamation will “move Texas to a higher state of alert and release resources to address the spread of the virus.”
In addition to the 22-month-old child who died in Houston on Monday after being infected in Mexico, state health officials are concerned about two other seriously ill patients who are suspected to have swine flu, said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Department of State Health Services.
The first is a 23-month-old child. The second is a pregnant woman who had to have an emergency C-section. Her child is doing fine, but the mother is in critical condition, Lakey said. He said there was “a high likelihood” that the woman’s illness would be confirmed as swine flu.
“We expect that as this outbreak continues, we’ll find more hospitalized patients,” Lakey said. He added: “We expect that there will probably be some additional deaths in the United States.”
Lakey said that people who got a regular flu vaccine may not be protected.
“I can’t trust the vaccine that I received this year necessarily to prevent this swine flu,” Lakey said.
Perry said that as Texans always do when faced with a challenge, “We prepare for the worst, we pray for the best. Working together, we will get through this challenge as well.”
Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott said most public schools are operating normally.
Two state lawmakers who had proposed shuttering some of Texas’ state institutions for people with mental disabilities say they’re abandoning that push because the passage of such legislation would be politically impossible.
State Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, and State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said today that they’re still pushing House Bill 1589 and Senate Bill 1060, which would require a long-term plan for all state services for Texans with mental disabilities, including state schools and community homes. But they say they’re taking out the part that would have mandated closure.
“This body is one that requires compromise,” Rose said. “Getting a bill out of committee and to the floor with consolidation required is a very difficult thing, and I think, impossible this session, here in the House.”
And Ellis said that newspaper editorials making the case against state school closure caused so much opposition among members of the Senate that “there’s no way I would get 21 votes to bring that up on the floor of the Senate.”
Rose said his proposal — without the mandated closure — is still an important way to help meet Texans’ needs in the best possible setting. For example, it would require that people would have to wait no longer than two years for programs that help Texans with mental disabilities live at home and in group homes. There are now long waiting lists.
“What we don’t have, in my opinion, is legitimate choice today in the state system,” Rose said. “This plan would get us to that point.”
Rose, chairman of the House Committee on Human Services, said his panel will vote on the measure today. And Ellis said the Senate Health and Human Services Committee is likely to vote today on his version of the proposal.
The chief of Texas’ health department this morning told a legislative panel that the state is treating the swine flu as if it were a pandemic, despite the fact that the vast majority of those affected in the United States have not been hospitalized.
“That really is not reassuring to me,” Dr. David Lakey, head of the Department of State Health Services, told the House Committee on Public Health today. “We suspect that at some point we will see deaths.”
Lakey said that’s in part because of what the virus looks like in Mexico, where the illness was blamed for the deaths of 149 people as of Monday night.
Also as of late Monday, there were six confirmed cases of swine flu in Texas — three in Guadalupe County and three in North Texas. Lakey said today that there are an additional 21 people in Texas suspected of having swine flu.
Texas health officials said today that they’re asking doctors and hospitals across the state to be on alert for possible swine flu cases.
There are three confirmed cases in Texas, all at a single high school in Guadalupe County.
“We would not be surprised to have more cases discovered,” said Doug McBride, a spokesman for the Department of State Health Services.
McBride said the three people in Texas with confirmed cases are all boys at Byron Steele High School in Cibolo — two 16-year-olds and an 18-year-old. They were not hospitalized, McBride said. The latest case — the 18-year-old’s, which state officials had said yesterday was a suspected case — was confirmed today by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, McBride said.
“They all had relatively mild cases,” he said.
The health department has told doctors and hospitals that if patients test positive for Influenza A, and it’s a type that cannot be identified, that samples be forwarded to the CDC so they can be tested for swine flu.
McBride urged Texans to stay home if they’re sick, cover their coughs and sneezes, and wash their hands thoroughly and often.
“There’s no need to panic,” he said.
Corpus Christi officials said today there are four suspected cases of swine flu in Nueces County, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
Currently, Texas licenses professionals ranging from massage therapists to barbers, but people who perform laser hair-removal services don’t need state certification. House Bill 449 by Rep. Jim Jackson, R-Carrollton, seeks to change that.
The newly-tapped chief scientific officer of the state’s cancer research institute says that one of the first things he’ll do with the millions of dollars heading to the institute this year is to try to lure top cancer scientists to Texas.
But first, said Dr. Alfred Gilman, the Legislature would need to approve funding for the institute — dollars that have already been approved by the voters of Texas.
At the Capitol this morning, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas announced that Gilman, a Nobel laureate, will soon join the institute that was created after voters in 2007 approved $3 billion in bonds for cancer research and prevention.
Yesterday, Gilman spoke with the Statesman about his plans for the institute. He said he’ll leave his job as executive vice president and provost of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas but that he’ll remain on campus in office space the state institute will rent.
But he said he’s not leaving the boards of drug makers Eli Lilly and Company and Regeneron — something he says is not a conflict of interest because “they’re not going to be doing any business” with the institute, but if they do, he’d recuse himself.
The House this afternoon gave tentative approval to a measure that would limit use of tanning beds by teens.
But unlike the version that passed out of the House Committee on Public Health, the new version would not require teens to get a doctor’s note to use a tanning bed. State Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, offered the revamped version on the House floor.
The new version says that no one under 16.5 years old may use a tanning bed, and that those under 18 — and their parent — must sign an advisory that discusses the dangers of tanning.
The Senate Committee on Health and Human Services this morning approved creating a license plate that says “choose life.”
The anti-abortion measure, backed by Gov. Rick Perry, passed on a vote of 6-1. It now goes to the full Senate. There is a similar measure in the House.
Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, the author of the bill, said the goal of the license plates is to raise awareness about adoption. Carona, who is an adoptive father, said 19 states have such license plates.
The measure, if it passes, would let Texans buy a license plate that would benefit groups that provide counseling and other services to pregnant women considering placing their child with adoptive parents. Typically, specialty plates cost $30; of that, $22 goes to the designated cause.
Travis Floores, 15, a student at McNeil High School, urged senators to support the measure. Floores, who is adopted, said during public testimony that if his birth mother hadn’t chosen adoption, “I might not be here today.”
“There’s kids all over Texas that are just like me that deserve a place to go,” Floores said.
But Blake Rocap of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, told senators he was opposed to the bill because of the lack of regulation of entities that would receive the money.
“It would be easier to support this bill if the funds were going to licensed maternity homes or other medical providers that were under state license and regulations,” Rocap told senators.
Texas has about 200 specialty license plates, including some supporting universities, Girl Scouts and the March of Dimes. The Texas Department of Transportation can require legislative approval if the plates would be controversial.
The Texas House today tentatively approved requiring grocery stores and seafood markets to post signs warning that certain fish and shellfish may contain high levels of mercury.
The signs — which would not have to be posted at restaurants — would warn pregnant women, nursing mothers, women considering becoming pregnant and parents of young children that high levels of mercury “may harm the developing nervous system of a child.”
The bill’s author, Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, compared the sign to cigarette warning labels. It would specify that large fish such as shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish may contain high levels of mercury.
“Unless you know to go to the Internet, you won’t know,” Farrar said.
The House voted 99-45 in favor of House Bill 681, but first there was a lively 20-minute debate. Some members complained that there are already enough signs telling people what not to do and pointed out that eating fish has many health benefits.
And State Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, took issue with the signs, saying: “I just hate to destroy the market of fish.”
Farrar responded: “Mr. Chisum, I assure you that this does not affect the fishing industry in the Panhandle.”
A bit later, Rep. Joe Crabb, R-Atascocita, couldn’t resist: “I am the only shellfish in this body,” Crabb told Farrar. “Joe Crabb supports what you’re trying to do.”
The Senate today approved a measure that would move toward changing the way the state compensates doctors and hospitals that treat Medicaid patients. Senate Bill 7 by Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, emphasizes paying based on quality of care and patient outcomes rather than number of services.
It does that by authorizing a quality-based payment pilot program, giving performance-based incentives to nursing homes, and gathering information from hospitals that would be used to study payment changes.
The proposal also:
Starts a pilot program designed to reduce obesity among patients in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
Requires the state to create electronic health records for Medicaid and CHIP recipients.
Prohibits or reduces Medicaid payments for so-called “never events” such as surgery performed on the wrong body part.
State representatives seeking to keep their version of the Texas budget free of amendments that would ban state funds from being used on embryonic stem cell research say they have a plan for killing such proposals.
The Senate passed its budget with such a ban, and the House is debating its version of the budget today.
State Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, has filed three amendments that would ban state funds from being used on embryonic stem cell research — but he’s actually a supporter of spending money on the research.
He said he filed those amendments to give his colleagues the chance to raise a point of order, objecting that the proposal would change general law and therefore is not permitted in the appropriations bill.
Supporters of embryonic stem cell research this morning called on the Texas House not to adopt budget language that would ban use of state money for the research. Such language is in the Senate version of the budget.
At a Capitol press conference, Emma Garrett, a volunteer with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, said she hopes embryonic stem cell research could help find a cure for diabetes. Her 2-year-old daughter, Sarah, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes before her first birthday.
“For me, it’s incredibly urgent that a cure for diabetes is found,” Garrett said.
State Reps. Ellen Cohen, D-Houston; Mark Homer, D-Paris; and Rick Hardcastle, R-Vernon, said that budget amendments aren’t the right place to make policy on stem cell research.
“There’s been no testimony, no input from institutions and no opportunity to hear from the public,” Cohen said.
The House is debating the budget today. For Hardcastle, who has multiple sclerosis, the fight to keep stem cell language out of the budget will be personal, he said.
“My goal today is to make sure that none of these harmful amendments get on,” he said.
Pictured below: Emma Garrett and daughter Sarah, 2.
Tomorrow, committees in both the Texas Senate and House are expected to consider a variety of bills related to state institutions for Texans with mental disabilities.
Among those are proposals that would close some of the 13 institutions known as state schools.
The Senate Committee on Health and Human Services is set to consider a measure by Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, that would require closing some institutions and reforming the entire system of services for Texans with disabilities.
The measure, Senate Bill 1060, does not designate which institutions - or how many - would close. Instead, it calls for state officials to heed recommendations of a steering committee that would consist of lawmakers, state school employees and state school residents and their families.
The House version of Ellis’ proposal is expected to be considered by the Committee on Human Services. Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, the panel’s chairman, is the author of that measure, House Bill 1589.
The chairman of the House committee considering a proposed statewide workplace smoking ban said today that it’s unclear whether the measure has a future this session.
“It’s at a stalemate right now,” state Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, chairman of the House Committee on State Affairs, said in an interview. “It’s an important issue to a lot of people, and a lot of people think it goes too far.”
The measure would ban smoking in indoor workplaces, including bars and restaurants. Supporters — which include the American Cancer Society, Texas Medical Association and the Lance Armstrong Foundation — say that it’s a key way to cut down on harmful secondhand smoke. Critics say it’s an affront to the rights of property owners and businesses.
The Senate version of the proposal — by Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston — was considered in a public hearing yesterday before the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, which did not immediately vote on the measure.
On the House side, Solomons said he’s promised the bill’s author, Rep. Myra Crownover, R-Denton, that the measure will get a hearing. But he said he’s not sure whether it will make it out of committee.
As members of the House Committee on Human Services today considered lessons learned from last year’s child-welfare raid on the sprawling West Texas home of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, they stumbled over what, exactly, to call that home.
State officials call it a compound.
Sect members call it a ranch — Yearning for Zion Ranch.
At one point, committee chairman Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, asked sect member Willie Jessop if “compound” was offensive.
In response, Jessop signaled to a man in the audience, who walked up to Rose and handed him a bottle of salad dressing. Ranch dressing. In place of the word “Ranch,” the label said: “Compound.”
The House Committee on Human Services tomorrow is scheduled to take a look at how the state handled last year’s child-welfare operation at a West Texas ranch owned by a polygamist sect.
Testimony is expected from people invited by the panel, including Anne Heiligenstein, commissioner of the Department of Family and Protective Services; Willie Jessop, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; Scott McCown, executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities; and Kevin Dietz of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which represented some of the FLDS mothers.
Jessop said he plans to tell lawmakers that he takes issue with Heiligenstein’s recent public comments about how she did not think the state made any mistakes in the case and that her agency would respond swiftly to any future abuse allegations.
“That’s a pretty tough statement when you consider the amount of trauma that women and children was put through,” Jessop said. “All we wanted to do was to be left alone, to be good people, law-abiding people.”
But state officials say they found a pattern of young girls marrying older men.
The money raised would be used to lure doctors to underserved areas of the state by expanding Texas’ programs that repay physicians’ medical school loans. Dentists and other health professionals could also be eligible for the loan repayment if they agree to work in certain areas.
The proposal, House Bill 1876, is by state Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, who estimates that the tax tweak would bring in around $50 million a year. Under the proposal, 75 percent of that would go toward the loan repayment program and 25 percent would go toward helping Federally Qualified Health Centers serve more uninsured Texans.
Overwhelmed by an increase in applications for food stamps and Medicaid, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission has postponed plans to expand use of a new computer enrollment system, officials said today.
“The national economic situation has certainly arrived in Texas, at least in our offices,” said Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the commission.
Statewide, Texas is struggling to meet the 30-day federal standard for processing food stamp applications and the 45-day standard for Medicaid applications. For example, in March, the state met the food stamp deadline for 76.4 percent of applications (95 percent is the goal).
Enrollment in food stamps is up almost 20 percent from a year ago, according to the commission.
The Texas Senate today approved a proposal to create a health insurance program for children in Texas’ child-support system. The measure now goes to the House.
The program — proposed last year by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott — would target some 200,000 uninsured children in the child-support system; coverage would be provided by a private health plan.
About 1.2 million children are in the state’s child-support system. Not all Texas children whose parents pay child support are in that system. The state tracks families who apply for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and those who ask for help setting, enforcing or modifying a child support order.
The proposed program doesn’t have a price tag for the state because it would redirect into a new health insurance pool the “cash medical support” that parents are sometimes ordered to pay. Now, that cash doesn’t always lead to health care coverage, the bill’s author, Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, has said.
“This legislation will enhance the state’s ongoing effort to connect more Texas children to health insurance,” Nelson said.
The measure, House Bill 1317, now goes to the full House. The Senate has passed a similar measure that focuses on state schools but not community homes. Both call for an independent ombudsman for state schools and video surveillance in common areas at the institutions.
An Adult Protective Services investigation into “fight club” activities has confirmed 47 incidents of abuse or neglect by 11 Corpus Christi State School employees, state officials said today.
There’s a separate criminal investigation going on; both investigations are in connection with fights that police say employees organized for more than a year among residents of the home for Texans with mental disabilities.
Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Department of Family and Protective Services, said the APS investigation confirmed allegations of:
14 incidents of physical abuse
six incidents of verbal or emotional abuse
nine incidents of exploitation
18 incidents of neglect
The 11 employees no longer work at the state school, according to Cecilia Fedorov, a spokeswoman for the Department of Aging and Disability Services. Some had left their jobs before police learned about the fights; others were fired after that.
Fedorov said that when the fights came to light, the department immediately began making changes to improve safety. She said no new changes are expected as a result of the APS investigation.
Department of Family and Protective Services Commissioner Anne Heiligenstein said today that Texas did the right thing in removing hundreds of children from a West Texas ranch during a child-welfare investigation a year ago.
And she said that though the children — members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — are now far safer than they were before, her agency will respond swiftly to any future abuse allegations.
“Texas will not idly stand by while they sexually abuse young children,” she said.
Her conversation with reporters in Austin came exactly one year after state authorities entered the ranch in Eldorado, where they removed 439 children (since a Texas Supreme Court ruling, all but one child has been returned to his or her family).
The House Committee on Public Health yesterday approved a bill that says Texans under 18 would not be able allowed to use tanning beds unless they have a doctor’s note and a parent present. The measure by Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, now heads to the full House.
The committee vote was 8-1, with Rep. Jodie Laubenberg, R-Parker, voting no.
The new Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas has its first executive director. William “Bill” Gimson started the position today after being selected by the institute’s oversight committee.
Gimson retired in January as chief operating officer of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he spent 35 years. There, he oversaw more than 15,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $10 billion, according to the Texas institute.
The institute was created to oversee the $3 billion in bonds approved by Texas voters in 2007 for cancer research and prevention.
“Bill has a proven track record of exceptional management skills that yield pioneering results,” said Gov. Rick Perry. “His leadership will no doubt lead the institute to global renown as it contributes to the development of groundbreaking research that saves lives.”
A Senate panel today passed a bill that would create a private health insurance program for children in Texas’ child-support system. The measure now goes to the full Senate.
The coverage would be provided by a private health plan that the attorney general’s office selects via a competitive bidding process.
Now, non-custodial parents whose children don’t have health insurance are typically ordered to pay “cash medical support” to the custodial parent. But that cash doesn’t always lead to health care coverage, said State Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, author of the bill.
The Legislative Budget Board doesn’t expect the proposal to generate significant costs; it would redirect the cash medical assistance to a new health insurance pool.
“By re-directing ‘cash medical support’ dollars into this health care pool, we are creating an option for parents who do not qualify for government-funded health care, yet have no health insurance available through their employers,” Nelson said.
As the one-year anniversary of the state raid on the YFZ Ranch approaches, today’s Oprah Winfrey Show will focus on the West Texas polygamist community.
“Texas state officials say the ranch was a place where child abuse was rampant and young girls were forced into polygamist marriages,” Winfrey says on her Web site. “The people who live here say, while yes, they do believe in plural marriages, they say the are not forced to marry anyone.”
In Austin, Oprah’s show is on KVUE at 4 p.m.
Texas officials removed more than 400 children from the ranch; all but one have been returned to their families.
Inez Hernandez of Corpus Christi filed a civil lawsuit this week in Nueces County against the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services, saying that her son, Armando Hernandez, 21, was forced to fight other residents of the state school, which is a home for people with mental disabilities.
Armando Hernandez “was not one that we identified” in the videos, Corpus Christi Police Capt. Tim Wilson said. “That doesn’t mean he’s not a victim.”
A mother who says her son was forced to participate in fights organized by employees of a Corpus Christi institution for people with mental disabilities is suing the state.
In a lawsuit filed in Nueces County against the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services, Inez Hernandez says that her son, Armando Hernandez, 21, lived at Corpus Christi State School from April 2007 to April 2008, where he “sustained serious personal injuries, including severe humiliation, degradation and mental anguish.”
The lawsuit alleges that the department neglected to properly supervise employees and failed to provide immediate medical attention to Armando Hernandez.
“These special-needs residents are some of the most vulnerable and fragile members of our community,” Robert Hilliard, a lawyer for Inez Hernandez, said in a statement. “To think that the protectors of their welfare were turning them into tools for their own sick entertainment makes my blood boil. I put this at the feet of the agency itself, an agency that, time and time again, throughout this state has allowed systematic abuse of every kind to go mostly unchecked.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Aging and Disability Services said she was not familiar with the lawsuit.
The Nueces County District Attorney’s Office filed criminal charges against six former employees of state school after Corpus Christi police obtained a cell phone earlier this month showing videos of workers organizing fights among residents. Gov. Rick Perry has suspended admissions at the institution.
Hispanics and African Americans under age 65 in Texas — and throughout the country — were significantly more likely to be uninsured than whites, according to a new report.
The report by Families USA, which advocates for affordable health care for all Americans, says that 29.2 percent of whites under age 65 in Texas were uninsured for some or all of 2007 and 2008. In the same time period, 60.4 percent of Hispanic Texans under 65 were uninsured at some point, as were 43 percent of African American Texans.
Nationwide, 55.1 percent of Hispanics, 40.3 percent of African Americans and 25.8 percent of whites lacked health insurance at some point during those two years.
The report also said that 43.9 percent of Texans under 65 — 9.3 million people — were uninsured at some point during 2007 and 2008. Nationwide, about a third of people under 65 — 86.7 million people — were uninsured at some point during that time.
“The huge number of people without health coverage in Texas is worse than an epidemic,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA. “At this point, almost everyone in the country has had a family member, neighbor, or friend who was uninsured—and that’s why meaningful health care reform can no longer be kept on the back burner.”
The Texas Senate unanimously today approved and sent to the House legislation that would expand the so-called “prescriptive authority” of doctors that supporters say would allow for the expansion of health-care clinics.
The measure by state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, would decrease, from 20 to 10 percent, the amount of time doctors delegating prescriptive authority to physicians assistants and advance practice nurses are required to practice on-site with a PA or nurse practitioner.
“This will allow for the expansion of health care,” Patrick said. “It will benefit rural and urban Texans alike.”
The measure was supported by the Texas Medical Association, Patrick said.
The Texas Senate today approved Senate Bill 476, which seeks to increase the role of nurses in hospital staffing decisions.
It would require that 60 percent of the members of a hospital’s nurse staffing committee be nurses (an earlier version of the bill said 50 percent).
The bill’s author, Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, said the proposal is a way to retain nurses.
“Most importantly, we need to foster an environment in which our nurses can provide the best possible care to hospital patients,” said Nelson, the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services.
The bill is backed by the Texas Nurses Association, and there’s an identical bill in the House by Austin Democrat Donna Howard and others. The House version has been referred to the Committee on Public Health.
Some critics of Nelson’s proposal say it doesn’t make significant changes. Members of the National Nurses Organizing Committee - Texas, are backing different legislation (House Bill 1489 and Senate Bill 1000), which would require nurse-to-patient staffing ratios.
A state investigation has found no evidence to support allegations that residents of Corpus Christi State School were fighting last week with employees watching — and no evidence of a repeat of earlier activity that police have called a “fight club.”
The Health and Human Services Commission Office of Inspector General investigators found “no fights, no evidence that additional fight club activity took place,” said Stephanie Goodman, a commission spokeswoman.
The allegations last week came as the institution was already under scrutiny because of fights that police say employees organized among residents during the past year or possibly longer. In that case, as of Friday, police had arrested four former state employees on felony charges; two others were wanted. Police have said that misdemeanor charges could be filed this week against employees who failed to report those fights.
Bart Bevers, inspector general of the Health and Human Services Commission, said Friday his office was investigating new allegations of fights among residents — one that allegedly occurred Wednesday night, with about nine state employees watching; the other was said to have happened Thursday night in front of two state employees.
The inspector general’s office “has looked into the two most recent reports at Corpus Christi State School and concluded that there was no criminal activity involved,” Goodman said.
Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Department of Family and Protective Services, said Adult Protective Services is continuing abuse and neglect investigations at Corpus Christi State School.
State Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, wants to lure doctors to underserved areas of the state by expanding Texas’ programs that repay physicians’ medical school loans.
He wants to pay for it by raising taxes on certain smokeless tobacco, which is now taxed by price. His House Bill 1876, which is expected to be considered next week by the House Committee on Public Health, would tax it instead by weight.
Chisum estimates that the change would generate about $50 million each year. He’s proposing that 75 percent of that go toward a loan repayment program that would be available to doctors as well as dentists and other healthcare professionals who agree to work in underserved areas. The other 25 percent would go toward helping Federally Qualified Health Centers serve more uninsured Texans.
Authorities are investigating allegations of a sexual assault at Mexia State School, a spokesman from the Department of Family and Protective Services confirmed this morning.
“I can tell you that last week we got a report from (the Department of Aging and Disability Services) of a possible sexual assault at Mexia State School and we’re investigating,” said Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the family and protective services department.
Crimmins did not give any information about the alleged victim.
There were 228 allegations of sexual abuse at Mexia State School last year. None of those allegations were confirmed as abuse.
Authorities are investigating new allegations that Corpus Christi State School residents were continuing to fight each other - as recently as this week - while employees watched.
The latest fights allegedly took place on Wednesday and Thursday - amid an ongoing investigation into similar charges.
Less than two weeks ago, Gov. Rick Perry suspended admissions to the institution for Texans with mental disabilities following police allegations that employees organized fights among residents throughout the last year and possibly longer.
Bart Bevers, inspector general of the Health and Human Services Commission, said his office on Friday received allegations of two new fights.
One fight allegedly occurred on Wednesday night, with about nine state employees “standing around watching,” Bevers said. The second allegedly occurred Thursday night while two state employees were allegedly watching, he said.
In response, Bevers dispatched members of his staff to Corpus Christi on Friday, he said.
“They are there interviewing people as we speak,” Bevers said Friday evening.
Corpus Christi State School Superintendent Iva Benson said nine employees have been suspended as a result of the two allegations.
She said one allegation was brought to her attention by Advocacy Inc, a group that works to help Texans with disabilities. Benson then notified the Office of Inspector General, she said. She said none of the residents appear to have been injured and the alleged fights did not occur in the same dorm as the earlier ones.
“If someone says something happened, we have to report it,” Benson said. “I would hope that the public … would say that people are innocent until you get the facts to prove they are guilty.”
State Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, whose district includes the state school, said: “If it turns out the allegations are true, I’m gravely disappointed that (Department of Aging and Disabilities Services Commissioner Addie) Horn and her executive committee have been ineffective in properly addressing these dire circumstances.”
Meanwhile, officials continue to investigate the earlier allegations of fights organized and filmed by employees throughout the last year and possibly longer.
Corpus Christi police Capt. Tim Wilson said Friday that more charges could be filed in that case as early as Monday - misdemeanor charges against those who knew about the incidents and failed to report them.
Give State Rep. Gary Elkins some credit for being honest.
At a hearing yesterday of the House Committee on Human Services, Elkins and other members of the panel considered more than two dozen bills related to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Three hours into the hearing, Elkins asked: “What’s Medicaid?”
The Houston Republican continued: “I know I hear it — I really don’t know what it is. I know that’s a big shock to everybody here in the audience, OK.”
He could have kept quiet. He could have asked an aide. He could have Googled it. Instead, he asked the question into the microphone in the middle of a public hearing.
Medicaid, for the record, is the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people and people with disabilities.
Elkins is new to the Human Services Committee. However, he’s served in the House since 1995, where one of the main tasks before him and other lawmakers is crafting the state budget.
State Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, chairman of the House Committee on Human Services, said today that he has discharged a subcommittee that he’d formed to examine last year’s child welfare raid at a West Texas ranch owned by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The subcommittee never met.
Rose said that there was a lot of interest in the topic and it didn’t make sense to have people travel to Austin to testify before the subcommittee and then return to testify before the entire committee. So the entire committee will now consider legislation related to the issue.
The subcommittee was to be chaired by state Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin. Its other members were Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo and Rep. Ana Hernandez, D-Houston.
Texas officials removed more than 400 children from the ranch on suspicion of child abuse and neglect; as of last week, all but one had returned to their parents after rulings by the Texas Supreme Court and a state district judge.
A controversial measure that would allow a first-ever program to allow addicts to exchange dirty syringes for clean ones as a way to curb disease was tentatively approved today by the Texas Senate.
By a 23-7 vote — not enough for immediate final passage to the Texas House — senators approved Senate Bill 188 that will allow local health departments to begin one-for-one exchanges of syringes along with drug-abuse education and prevention programs.
“I know this has been somewhat controversial,” said Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, the author. “Texas is the only state in the nation that does not allow this. People think it will increase drug use. It won’t.
“It decreases HIV. It decreases Hepatitis B and C. It saves the state money. It reduces the number of dirty needles in the community.”
The no votes were all among Deuell’s fellow Republicans: Sens. Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls; Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bend; Joan Huffman, R-Houston; Steve Ogden, R-Bryan; Dan Patrick, R-Houston; Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, and Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands.
It’s not divorce and it’s not death, but military deployment is a separation that causes “injury of the soul” for families spending time apart, said Tracy Kehrer, an Army wife in Killeen.
With unprecedented effects rippling through the military community during wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Texas Legislature is moving to address both mental health and practical issues that arise when troops return home — or when it’s time to leave again.
State Sen. Eliot Shaleigh, D-El Paso, introduced two bills to soothe “the invisible wounds of these wars,” he said. Senate Bill 196 would double the counseling efforts in schools serving students with parents in combat zones overseas to offer more one-on-one time. Working with three other senators, Shapleigh also drafted Senate Bill 1030 to improve health care services for military personnel and families affected by post-traumatic stress disorder.
Senators Jane Nelson and Leticia Van de Putte also proposed several pieces of legislation to assist families with mental health, education and employment opportunities.
Texans under 18 would not be allowed to use tanning beds unless they have a doctor’s permission and a parent present, under a bill a House panel that’s being considered today.
“This is like big tobacco,” the bill’s author, state Rep. Burt Solomons, a Carrollton Republican, told members of the House Committee on Public Health. “These guys are basically luring teens in.”
Lawmakers heard from doctors who said the bill is a good idea because of the dangers of ultraviolet light. They also heard from a tanning salon chain owner, who said the proposal would hurt business. The panel did not vote on House Bill 1310, which Solomons said would enact the nation’s strictest tanning regulations for teens.
Texas already requires people younger than 13 to have a doctor’s note and for people 15 and under to have a parent or guardian at the tanning facility while their child is tanning.
Dozens of families raising children with disabilities gathered at the South Steps today to support a slew of proposed legislation that would ease the challenges of providing care for their kids.
Several groups, including Texas Parents Advocating for Community Services, Down Syndrome Association of Central Texas and Texas Parent to Parent, donned light-blue t-shirts and waved signs with the same message: “The word retarded causes pain. Use intellectual disability instead.”
That’s just one of the issues they hope to address this session. The “person first” respectful language bill would stop the Legislature and Health and Human Services from using the phrase “mental retardation.” The advocates also pushed legislation that would reform state schools for Texans with disabilities, ease access to Medicaid, open employment opportunities and help train teachers how to guide students with disabilities.
The report says that caseworker turnover rates increased from 23 percent in the 2004 budget year to 34 percent in 2007. In the Austin area, the turnover in the same time period went from 21 percent to 36 percent. The top reasons workers cited for leaving were poor working conditions, issues with supervisors and lower pay and benefits than they could find elsewhere. The average caseworker salary in 2007 was about $34,000.
In the 2008 budget year, statewide caseworker turnover decreased — for the first time since 2004 — to 30.5 percent.
“While the causes of this decrease cannot be definitively determined, the economic downturn may be decreasing caseworkers’ ability to find other employment,” the report said.
The number of caseworkers statewide increased 31 percent — from 3,139 in 2004 to 4,104 in 2007. And investigative caseloads “significantly decreased” from a daily average of 42.8 cases per worker in 2005 to 25.3 cases per worker in 2007.
In 2004, Gov. Rick Perry called for CPS reforms, and lawmakers passed reform legislation in 2005 and 2007.
State lawmakers today visited Corpus Christi State School, an institution for Texans with mental disabilities, less than a week after Gov. Rick Perry suspended admissions there following police allegations that employees encouraged residents to fight each other.
State Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, said that he and other lawmakers went to the dorm-style home where police say that the late-night fights occurred. The fights were filmed on a cell phone that was obtained by authorities. State officials last week ordered video surveillance for common areas at all 13 state schools.
“I saw today how the presence of security cameras in the public spaces could potentially have benefit on the safety of residents in the private spaces,” Rose said.
Rose gave what he called “a sad and tragic example.” Staff members at Corpus Christi State School are supposed to patrol private living spaces every 15 minutes, he said. But in 2007, a 28-year-old woman hanged herself with shoelaces — and Rose said it was clear that the staff did not do the required patrols because the woman was not discovered until “well after” she died.
Rose, chairman of the House Committee on Human Services, said he was joined at the state school by Nueces County lawmakers, State Rep. Drew Darby of San Angelo, Perry chief of staff Jay Kimbrough, law enforcement officials and commissioner Addie Horn of the Department of Aging and Disability Services.
Rose’s committee is working on a House version of Perry’s emergency state school legislation, which the Senate has passed. He said he’d like to see improvements in the way abuse, neglect and exploitation are reported and investigated.
“We shouldn’t depend on the fluke of finding a cell phone,” Rose said.
Police have arrested three current or former state employees on felony charges in connection with fights that authorities say they staged among residents of an institution for people with mental disabilities, Corpus Christi Police Capt. Tim Wilson said today. Those in police custody are Vince Johnson, 22; Timothy Dixon, 30; and Stephanie Garza, 21.
Arrest warrants have been issued for three others: Dangelo Riley, 22; Guadalupe Delarosa, 21; and Jesse Salazar, 25. One of those might be out of state, Wilson said, but he didn’t say which one.
Hundreds of advocates on the South Steps of the Capitol rallied Thursday for proposed legislation that would improve teens’ access to sex education facts.
Senate Bill 515 by Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, and its matching House Bill 741 by Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, would require medically-accurate comprehensive sex education in schools. It’s dubbed “Education Works!” Measures by two Austin Democrats, Sen. Kirk Watson’s Senate Bill 1100 and Rep. Mark Strama’s House Bill 1694 (called “Prevention Works!”), would similarly help spread awareness of family planning and sex education information.
A House panel is grilling Department of Aging and Disability Services Commissioner Addie Horn on how employees of Corpus Christi State School could have been involved in encouraging residents with disabilities to fight each other, as police have alleged.
Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, chairman of the House Committee on Human Services, told Horn that “what happened down there was unacceptable,” and the vice chairman, Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, said that he and other lawmakers have called for in the past.
In fact, Herrero said, the changes the department is now implementing at the governor’s direction — such as adding video surveillance — were things he and other lawmakers recommended as far back as 2007.
“To say now that your agency is responding with lightning speed to these calls for help I believe is disingenuous,” Herrero, whose district includes Corpus Christi State School, told Horn.
Horn said that agency officials had approached federal officials about video cameras and were told that that was not possible.
Horn told lawmakers: “Can I prevent all abuse? No. Can we react quickly when it occurs? Yes. Can I do more to prevent? That is what we’re trying to do.”
Later, State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, told Horn that he was frustrated that the agency officials waited so long to make changes recommended in 2007.
“They’re waiting until now and I bet there’s some people who died because of that,” Coleman said. “And that is shameful, absolutely shameful.”
After that, Horn started to cry. Her voice cracking, she told lawmakers that if she had a magic wand, she’d make everybody understand that you do not hurt vulnerable people.
As for those who have done so, “I’d like to hunt them down and kill them,” Horn said.
Corpus Christi police say that six arrest warrants have been issued and one suspect is in custody on the ‘fight clubs’ they say were ongoing at Corpus Christi State School.
Corpus Christi residents Timothy Dixon, 30; Jesse Salazar, 25; Guadalupe Delarosa, 21; Vince Johnson, 22; Dangelo Riley, 22; and Stephanie Garza, 21, have been charged with injury to a disabled person, said Corpus Christi Police Capt. Tim Wilson.
Johnson is in police custody, Wilson said. He’s being held with bail set at $30,000, Wilson said.
All were charged with third-degree felonies except Garza, who was charged with a state jail felony.
That’s what state Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, said he heard from Department of Aging and Disability Services officials after cell-phone videos surfaced that police say show employees encouraging residents with mental disabilities to fight each other.
“I was disappointed that the agency solely responsible for the care of persons in state school settings would not be willing to recognize the severity of the situation,” said Herrero, whose district includes the Corpus Christi State School. He viewed the videos today and described them as “despicable, deplorable, completely unacceptable.”
In a few minutes, the House Committee on Human Services is set to take up emergency legislation increasing oversight of state schools. The measure passed the Senate earlier this week.
Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, and Sen. Leticia Van De Putte, D-San Antonio, filed legislation today that would create an independent council of state agency leaders to coordinate children and family services.
“Currently, services to children are compartmentalized,” Naishtat said. “The creation of the council is intended to improve coordination, collaboration and communication among these agencies, which will be directed to develop an interagency strategic plan of how to better meet the needs of children and families in Texas.”
The council would bring together commissioners of the state’s health, education and human services systems to help oversee the existing agencies and objectives. Among the group’s responsibilities would be submitting an interagency legislative appropriations request for related services.
Nine states, including Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Kentucky, have similar commissions. In 15 other states, more involved “children’s cabinets” exist.
A new House panel will examine last year’s child welfare raid at a West Texas ranch owned by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
State Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, today tapped fellow Central Texas Rep. Elliott Naishtat to lead the panel, a subcommittee of the House Committee on Human Services, which Rose leads.
Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, and Rep. Ana Hernandez, D-Houston, will join Naishtat on the panel.
Texas officials removed more than 400 children from the ranch on suspicions of child abuse and neglect; all but one have returned to their parents after rulings by the Texas Supreme Court and a state district judge.
“Although it is unlikely that we will see an investigation of this size and scope again, it is important that we hear from caseworkers, law enforcement officers and local elected officials to learn how each of these groups and relevant agencies can better cooperate in investigations of abuse and neglect,” Naishtat said in a statement.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry today suspended admissions to a Corpus Christi institution for people with mental disabilities after learning of cell-phone videos that police say show residents being encouraged by employees to fight each other.
It’s “sort of like a fight club,” said Capt. Tim Wilson of the Corpus Christi Police Department’s criminal investigation division. “This appears to be organized and occurring with some regularity and with a lot of the same actors involved.”
The investigation of Corpus Christi State School comes as lawmakers are weighing increasing oversight of the state’s 13 such residential institutions in the wake of critical federal reports. The U.S. Department of Justice reported in December that the facilities fail to protect residents from harm, and Perry designated fixing state schools a legislative emergency.
“This further underscores why the governor made this an emergency item,” said Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Perry. “We need enhanced oversight.”
No arrests have been made, but police are looking at possible felony charges of injury to a disabled person, Wilson said.
State officials are also investigating, and seven state school employees have been placed on emergency leave, said Cecilia Fedorov, a spokeswoman for the Department of Aging and Disability Services. Two other employees have been fired, and two have resigned, she said.
Wilson said the videos — which were taken by a cell phone and came to light after the phone was given to an off-duty police officer last week — show residents pushing, wrestling and striking each other. The dates on the videos indicate that the activity has been going on for more than a year, Wilson said. He said the cell phone appears to have belonged to a state school employee.
“It’s pretty appalling to have the workers charged with the care and custody of these clients exploiting them for their own entertainment,” Wilson said. “That’s what it appears.”
The Texas Senate today approved a proposal to establish an independent ombudsman’s office for the 13 troubled state institutions for people with mental disabilities.
The proposal, which was designated a legislative emergency by Gov. Rick Perry, comes after the U.S. Department of Justice reported in December that the institutions known as state schools fail to protect residents from harm.
It was the first substantive piece of legislation passed by either chamber this session.
Families of Texans with mental disabilities came to the Capitol today to tell lawmakers they oppose closing, consolidating or downsizing the residential institutions known as state schools.
“We think there’s a need for both” state schools and community care, said Nancy Ward. She’s chairwoman of governmental affairs for the group that visited the Capitol — the Parent Association for the Retarded of Texas — and her daughter lives at Denton State School.
As members of the association sat in the House gallery today, several lawmakers addressed them from the floor. “Your choice is going to be respected,” state Rep. Larry Phillips, R-Sherman, told them.
A letter from the association to state leaders says in part: “For many people with mental retardation, State Schools provide the least costly, most efficient, most effective, least restrictive and most protective form of care that meets their individual needs.”
Some lawmakers have proposed closing some of the 13 institutions, which are home to nearly 5,000 Texans, and directing resources toward community care. The state schools have been under scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice, which in December reported that they fail to protect Texans from harm. Gov. Rick Perry has declared fixing state schools an emergency for the legislative session.
About 10,000 purple postcards are being delivered to legislators today from supporters of full funding for family violence programs. Filling 12 mail bins, the postcards are “proof positive” of the need to maintain services and shelters as a top priority in the legislative budget, said Aaron Setliff, public policy director for the Texas Council on Family Violence.
Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, and Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, committed to full funding to sustain existing programs. The Health and Human Services Commission requested $50.9 million for family violence services in the upcoming biennium, with an additional $2.5 million as an exceptional item.
More money may also be available through the $4 billion allocated to health and human services in the stimulus package, said Dukes, who is on the House appropriations committee.
A Senate panel today passed a bill that would legalize needle-exchange programs in Texas. The measure now heads to the full Senate.
Texas is the only state that does not allow programs that give clean syringes to drug users, said state Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, a physician who is the author of the legislation.
The proposal, Senate Bill 188, was approved by a vote of 5-1 in the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. Sen. Joan Huffman, a freshman Republican from Houston, voted no.
Critics of needle-exchange programs have said it encourages drug use. But Deuell said that it does not. He said it helps prevent infections and gets people into rehab.
During public testimony, Dr. Janet Realini of San Antonio told senators: “This is something that saves lives; it saves money; it does not increase risky behavior by any measure.”
A similar proposal was passed by the Senate in 2007 but died in a House committee. Also in 2007, lawmakers passed a needle-exchange pilot program in San Antonio, but it faced local opposition and never got off the ground.
Some 100 activists held a rally just outside the Capitol today, calling on lawmakers to close some state institutions for people with mental disabilities and invest in community services.
Tens of thousands of Texans are on waiting lists for programs that help people live at home and in group homes.
“That is simply not acceptable,” said state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, addressing people at the rally, which was organized by a nonprofit called Community Now.
Meanwhile, the 13 institutions known as state schools are under scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice, which reported in December that the facilities fail to protect residents from harm. The state schools are home to nearly 5,000 Texans.
Rally participants marched from the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum to the Capitol. They held the rally on the north steps of the building and inside, they observed a moment of silence for people who have died at state institutions. The Justice Department said that in about a year, 53 people died of preventable conditions at the short-staffed institutions.
“This cannot continue and it will not continue,” Doug Lewin of state Sen. Rodney Ellis’ office said at the rally.
Ellis, a Houston Democrat, and state Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, have proposed shutting down some state schools and reforming the entire system of services for Texans with mental disabilities.
Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Attorney General Greg Abbott today publicly expressed their strong support for a bill that would require women seeking an abortion to first get an ultrasound.
The bill by state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, and state Rep. Frank Corte, R-San Antonio, is the top legislative priority of pro-life activists who came from all over Texas today to ask lawmakers to support it.
House Speaker Joe Straus briefly came outside the Capitol to greet some of the organizers of the pro-life groups’ rally on the south steps of the building.
But he didn’t speak at the rally. As he headed back into the Capitol, he was asked whether he supports the ultrasound bill.
“You know, I haven’t even looked at it,” Straus said. “I just know generally that it’s an ultrasound bill. I haven’t read it.”
State Rep. Patrick Rose, D- Dripping Springs, and state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, are expected to file legislation Monday that would reform Texas’ system of services for people with mental disabilities, including the institutions known as state schools.
The proposed reforms are designed to reduce the state’s reliance on institutions, but also seek to improve the quality of the facilities for those who want to live in them. State schools — which are residences — have been the target of scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice, which in December reported that Texas’ 13 institutions fail to protect residents from harm.
The Ellis/Rose bill is expected to direct state officials to create a plan that would consolidate and close some state schools. This is the most politically controversial part of the proposal; families of state school residents are strong defenders of each state school.
More than 150 volunteer advocates for abused and neglected children came to the Capitol today from across Texas to ask lawmakers for money to increase the number of such advocates.
In 2008, there were 44,928 children in the state’s custody, and more than 25,000 of those did not have a Court Appointed Special Advocate, said Joe Gagen, CEO of Texas CASA.
“In the past, when there’s a downturn in the economy, there’s a greater instance of child abuse,” Gagen said. “But there’s an unmet need even in good times.”
The Senate’s head budget writer, Sen. Steve Ogden, said today that an autism program for children will not be halted as state officials had proposed.
“We’re not going to cut that program,” the Bryan Republican said during a Senate Finance Committee hearing.
Yesterday, during a meeting of the same panel, state Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, told leaders of the state agency that oversees the program that she was concerned they identified it as something that could be trimmed.
“I don’t understand why you would take the whole program and get rid of it,” Shapiro said.
Terry Murphy, commissioner of the Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services, responded that he was forced to choose something to comply with House Speaker Joe Straus and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst’s recent instructions for agencies to offer spending reductions of about 2.5 percent in their budgets for 2009.
“We don’t think it’s a good thing to do,” he said of cutting the program. It is now a pilot program designed to serve around 300 children in the Houston and Dallas areas.
Halting the program in March as suggested by the department would have saved nearly $2 million.
The state’s Third Court of Appeals is expected to hear oral arguments today in Austin on a statewide $5-per-patron strip club fee that was supposed to pay for sexual assault prevention programs and health insurance for low-income Texans.
A state district judge last year struck down the fee, saying that it violates the First Amendment by singling out business activity — nude erotic dancing — that is protected expression. Comptroller Susan Combs and Attorney General Greg Abbott are appealing that ruling on the fee, which was mandated by the Legislature in 2007.
Meanwhile, the state has collected $11.2 million since the fee went into effect in January 2008, according to R.J. DeSilva at the comptroller’s office. But the money is not going to the prevention programs or the health insurance program, DeSilva said.
“It’s being held in the fund while (the) lawsuit makes its way through the courts,” DeSilva wrote in an e-mail.
Some nursing homes have seen a delay in getting reimbursed by the state for caring for Medicaid recipients, Texas officials said today.
The issue came up at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services when State Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, said that a nursing home in his district “is on the brink of closing because it can’t get paid … from the state.”
West demanded that Addie Horn, commissioner of the Department of Aging and Disability Services, resolve the issue by noon — which was less than two hours later.
Horn told West that since the state moved to a new payment system last year, some nursing homes have had a “delay in their payment.”
She did not say how many, but her spokeswoman, Cecilia Fedorov, later said that “the vast majority of the providers are being paid. It’s just a small handful of providers that are having issues.”
Since the Texas Legislature last met, the food stamp program got a new name.
Thanks to the federal government, the program is now called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. SNAP for short.
But Texas is not exactly embracing the long version of the new name, according to Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the state Health and Human Services Commission.
At the first meeting of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services today, Albert Hawkins, head of the commission, gave lawmakers an update on what he called “the SNAP program, or the food stamp program.” From then on, he called it “food stamps.”
True, food stamps aren’t really stamps at all. These days, the 2.9 million Texans in the program swipe their Lone Star Cards — which are like debit cards — to access benefits. (The federal government pays for the food; state workers enroll people in the program).
But is Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program really a better name?
Goodman says the commission has been working to make the language it uses for all its programs easy to understand, especially for low-literacy audiences.
“We have worked so hard … and they throw that at us,” Goodman said of the new name.
She said some of the information sent to recipients will now say “SNAP food benefits,” so as not to confuse Texans who see the SNAP name in brochures and posters sent to food banks by federal officials.
The Texas Medical Association said today it has joined class-action lawsuits against Cigna Corp. and Aetna Health, Inc.
The two lawsuits, filed in New Jersey federal court late Monday, accuse the companies of using skewed data for years to underpay doctors for out-of-network services.
“It’s time for Aetna and Cigna to stop this unethical business practice that shocks our patients with unexpectedly high bills for health care they thought they’d already paid for,” said TMA President Dr. Josie Williams. “It’s time for them to stop cheating physicians and patients just to pad their own profits.”
The American Medical Association, several state medical associations and individual doctors are among those suing the companies.
Cigna said in a statement that its payments to out-of-network doctors “are robust and fair,” according to this Associated Press article. That article also quotes an Aetna spokeswoman saying that the insurance company wants to continue “collaborative dialogue” with doctors on the topic.
Lance Armstrong made a cameo appearance Tuesday morning to rally his supporters as they prepared for their advocacy day at the Capitol to promote anti-smoking legislation.
“Our leaders have to be reminded that the people of Texas want this,” Armstrong said.
A poll last month reported 68 percent of Texans favor a statewide smoking ban in all workplaces, including restaurants and bars. A group hired by Smoke-Free Texas, an organization that supports the proposed ban, conducted the survey among 601 registered voters.
Dressed casually in a black T-shirt, jeans and flip-flops, Armstrong spoke for just a few minutes at the Courtyard Marriott hotel on Fourth Street. He paused to listen to a woman tell the story of her 25-year-old daughter who died of brain cancer. The woman offered Armstrong her daughter’s handwritten journal, which contains a letter to him that quotes his book.
Armstrong joked about not announcing his stop on his popular Twitter account — which more than 74,000 people follow — instead choosing to Tweet about listening to the band Whitesnake in the car. Minutes after leaving the advocates, Armstrong added an update on Twitter.
Gov. Rick Perry has re-appointed Bart Bevers as inspector general of the Health and Human Services Commission, the governor’s office said today. The one-year appointment is subject to Senate confirmation.
Bevers, who was first appointed by Perry in 2007, is charged with preventing and investigating fraud, waste and abuse in state’s $25 billion-a-year Medicaid program.
Bevers is the second inspector general of health and human services. The first one, Brian Flood, who wrote a report saying agency officials mismanaged efforts to privatize social services enrollment, resigned in 2007 after learning that Perry did not reappoint him.
Several lawmakers have said they’ll push for more independence for inspectors general - and possibly a state office of inspector general. Texas has inspectors general embedded in four state agencies: the Health and Human Services Commission, Texas Youth Commission, Texas Department of Criminal Justice and Texas Education Agency.
More than 300 children and adults representing 29 Texas child care agencies presented their legislative issues Wednesday at the Capitol as part of the sixth biennial Voices for Change Day, said Theresa Tod, executive director of Texas Network of Youth Services.
The organization has its own legislative priorities for this session, which include increased funding for prevention and early intervention services, but the advocacy day is intended for youth to share their own personal concerns, Tod said.
Groups addressed issues such as reducing teen pregnancy rates, making college more accessible to children in foster care and beautifying Texas communities. They also asked lawmakers to sign a “Put Kids 1st” pledge.
State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, encouraged the youth groups to interact with local lawmakers and spread their stories. He outlined his own work with the legislature and supported lowering dropout rates, freezing college tuitions and implementing a foster child bill of rights (which didn’t pass in 2007). Rodriguez also spoke about starting the Preparation for Adult Living Program at a younger age to aid the transition to independence.
Texans Care for Children and Children at Risk are co-hosting the event, holding a similar gathering at the same time at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin. The two meetings converged in the afternoon on the South Steps of the Capitol.
Watch the video here.
About 100 staff members working for the governor, lieutenant governor and comptroller may be easier to spot roaming around the Capitol complex this week — but it’s not just because the session’s starting to ramp up.
The three offices are competing in the Lone Star Step Challenge, documenting the number of steps they take each day using a pedometer, said Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle. Staffers clipped the egg-shaped step monitor to their belts Monday and will track their progress online until the competition ends Feb. 17. The winning team will receive $500 from the challenge sponsor, Virgin HealthMiles, to donate to the charity of their choice.
The fitness contest is a follow-up to last month’s Capitol Steps Challenge, when Gov. Rick Perry challenged governors of other states to a two-week step-off. Both initiatives call attention to increasing national obesity rates.
Team Texas was last ranked ninth of 14 states on the Capitol Steps Challenge Web site as of Wednesday morning. The winning state will be announced Feb. 20 and awarded $50,000 for child obesity programs.
Gov. Rick Perry this morning declared improving Texas’ 13 institutions for people with mental retardation an emergency.
A bill State Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, plans to file today would create an independent ombudsman for the troubled institutions, which are known as state schools, according to her office.
The U.S. Department of Justice reported in December that the state’s 13 institutions — home to about 5,000 Texas — fail to protect residents from harm.
Perry’s emergency declaration, reported by the Dallas Morning News this morning, allows lawmakers to begin considering the issue during the first 60 days of the legislative session. The governor, who announced the emergency declaration in a press release this morning, did not specify how exactly state schools should be improved.
Nelson’s bill, her office said, would:
— Authorize the governor to appoint an independent ombudsman to oversee state schools and to talk to members of the public about concerns with the institutions.
— Require annual audits of each state school.
— Require video cameras to be placed in common areas at state schools.
— Change the name “state schools” to “state developmental centers.”
— Implement new fingerprint background checks and random drug tests of employees.
— Create a toll-free abuse, neglect and exploitation hotline.
The legislation does not propose closing or consolidating state schools, Nelson’s office said. That’s something that state Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, and state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, have proposed.
“If Texans want to smoke … despite all the reasons they shouldn’t, they can do so,” said state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. “But the rest of us should have the freedom to breathe in oxygen without inhaling secondhand smoke.”
A poll released today shows that 68 percent of Texans favor such a ban. Baselice & Associates was hired by Smoke-Free Texas, a group supporting the smoking ban, to conduct the survey of 601 registered voters.
Smokers were less likely to support the ban than non-smokers. Seventy-eight percent of non-smokers favored the ban, compared to 60 percent of former smokers and 46 percent of smokers.
Nearly 15 million Texas adults will be obese by 2040 — almost triple the current number — if the state does not strengthen prevention efforts, according to new data from state demographer Karl Eschbach. It’s a trend experts say is alarming because obesity leads to other health problems — and it’s expensive.
“The consequences for our state if we don’t do anything are going to be profound,” Eschbach said. “This is a projection … that I sincerely hope is wrong.”
Today’s forecast — which shows the percentage of Texas adults who are obese increasing from 27.9 percent to 42.6 percent in 2040 — comes two days after Gov. Rick Perry called on lawmakers to tackle obesity through an incentive-based fitness program for children.
The obesity problem is the worst along the border and in rural areas, Eschbach said, and obesity rates among young adults have been increasing particularly fast.
“This is the single most serious threat that we face,” said state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services.
Health care premiums for Texans will nearly double by 2016 without federal and state reforms, according to a new report by the nonprofit Texas Public Interest Research Group.
The report projects that the average employer-sponsored family health policy in Texas will grow from $11,690 in 2006 to $24,003 in 2016 — an estimate adjusted for inflation.
“We need common-sense reform, reform that will curb waste and inefficiency,” said Melissa Cubria, an advocate at the research group. “Our health-care system is in a major crisis.”
She says that a third of the money spent nationally on health care is wasted — “bloating the pockets” of insurance companies and drug manufacturers rather than improving health outcomes.
The report calls for:
• Limiting administrative expenditures of health insurance companies.
• Basing payments to doctors and hospitals on quality of care, not the number of procedures performed.
• Increased monitoring of pharmaceutical marketing.
“It’s very clear that people are paying more and getting less from the health-care system,” said state Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, who joined Cubria at a press conference unveiling the report.
He said that a good way to make reforms is through the Texas Department of Insurance’s upcoming review by the Sunset Commission, which periodically evaluates state agencies. The department’s evaluation is scheduled for this year.
“What people have forgotten is that the state of Texas actually regulates insurance,” Coleman said.
In his State of the State address today, Gov. Rick Perry touted a legislative proposal that would require women seeking an abortion to first have an ultrasound.
The proposal by Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, and state Rep. Frank Corte Jr., R-San Antonio — which also calls for women to listen to the fetal heartbeat — passed the Senate in 2007 but stalled in the House. The bill says that it would not be mandatory for women to view the ultrasound image.
Perry urged lawmakers to support the legislation, calling it “another layer of protection for the most vulnerable Texans.”
“Issues of this complexity and moral weight are the sort of thing that we are sent here to address,” he said.
Patrick said hearing Perry push his plan is “music to these conservative ears.”
But Lesley Ramsey, director of the Texas Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, later said that the proposal “does not have the woman’s health or best interests in mind.”
“This legislation is a political tactic aimed at appeasing the governor’s primary base,” Ramsey said.
A group of activists for Texans with disabilities gathered outside the House chamber this morning before Gov. Rick Perry’s State of the State address to ask lawmakers to reduce waiting lists for state programs that help people with disabilities live at home or in group homes rather than in institutions. More than 80,000 Texans are on the waiting lists.
Bob Kafka, an organizer with Adapt of Texas, said it’s a good start that the Senate’s draft of the state budget includes $200 million for the Home and Community-based Services program, which serves Texans with mental retardation. That’s part of a plan to reduce the number of Texans at state schools, which are residential institutions for people with mental retardation.
But Kafka said that it’s also important to also fund other programs — those that serve Texans with other kinds of disabilities.
“We can’t forget that there are all these Texans with physical disabilities,” Kafka said. The budget writers are “pitting groups against each other.”
That, he added, would not be a first for the Legislature.
The number of Texas children removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect has declined following a series of reforms to Child Protective Services, the agency said today.
In the 2008 budget year, CPS removed 14,295 children, which is down from 15,920 in 2007 and 17,536 in 2006. That’s a decrease of 18.5 percent.
“Generally, children do better if they can remain safely with their families,” CPS spokesman Darrell Azar said. “Foster care is really intended as a last resort.”
Lawmakers passed CPS reforms in 2005 and 2007. As part of that, the state invested in programs that help keep families together, including one that provides cash assistance to certain low-income families.
“More often than not, neglect is at the heart of the problem,” rather than abuse, Azar said. “Some families are so impoverished, they can’t meet basic needs. The whole theory behind this is working with the family … to help them find the supports they need.”
State officials say the decline in removals is partly due to the reforms and partly to a 5th Circuit Court decision that clarifies that in most cases, CPS must get a judge’s permission before — not after — removing children.
Other changes include an increase of children being placed with relatives, a practice CPS officials say is a “safe alternative to foster care.” Between 2005 and 2008, the number of children placed with relatives increased 32 percent, officials said.
Caseloads have also dropped for CPS investigative caseworkers, officials said.
The state’s troubled institutions for people with mental retardation should stay open, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said today during lunch with reporters.
Some advocates and lawmakers (including state Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, chairman of the House Committee on Human Services) have suggested closing some of the residential facilities known as state schools. A December report by the Department of Justice, or DOJ, said that the facilities fail to protect residents from harm.
“I’m not against state schools like the DOJ is,” Dewhurst said.
The federal report identified problems throughout Texas’ system of 13 institutions, which are home to nearly 5,000 people. But Dewhurst said that every state school he visits — such as the Richmond State School — is well-run, so the report’s findings “come as a surprise.”
The Senate’s draft of the state budget designates $200 million in state funds for a program that helps people with disabilities live at home or in group homes rather than in institutions. That funding would be contingent upon the Legislature passing a measure to cap the number of people in state schools at 3,000.
State Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, the Senate’s chief budget writer, said in an interview: “I’m not for closing any state schools — I’m for controlling the size of state schools as far as population.”
The health care system of Texas — and that of the entire country — needs transformational change, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst told attendees of a Texas Hospital Association conference today in Austin.
He said that the current practice of paying doctors and hospitals for the number of procedures performed rather than for wellness, prevention and outcomes isn’t working.
“We’re not focusing on keeping people healthy — we’re focusing on … getting people well when they show up at the hospitals,” Dewhurst said.
Dewhurst proposed creating a health care pilot program in Texas, but he didn’t offer specifics on that.
“I’m totally convinced that our model is unsustainable,” he said.
He said that doctors and hospitals should be well-paid.
One of his main concerns is the growing cost of Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program, he said.
The preliminary Senate version of Texas’ budget for 2010-2011 includes $200 million to address problems at state institutions for people with mental retardation identified in a recent U.S. Department of Justice report. The report said the facilities known as state schools fail to protect residents from harm.
The preliminary budget would also help some residents of state schools move home or into group homes, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said.
If state and federal officials can’t come to an agreement on issues identified in the report, Justice Department officials could sue Texas.
Still, Jeff Garrison-Tate, an advocate who has called on Texas to close some of the state schools, said that it doesn’t make sense to “throw money” at what he called poorly managed institutions.
“We need to keep people safe, but we don’t need to be bailing these places out and continuing to waste money on a failed system,” said Garrison-Tate, president of the advocacy group Community Now.
In four and a half years, 490,000 uninsured Texas children could gain health coverage through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program under the CHIP reauthorization bill that the U.S. House approved Wednesday, according to a report released today by Families USA, a national nonprofit.
There are about 1.4 million uninsured Texas children — more than any other state.
“The expansion of children’s health coverage is a major victory for America’s families,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, which advocates for quality, affordable health care for all Americans. “The legislation will help to ensure that children get the health care they need when they need it, and it will enable children to learn and become productive citizens. The bill also represents a confidence-building down payment toward meaningful health care reform.”
Adding more children to CHIP may require legislative action. State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said he supports expanding CHIP, but that what he really wants to see is a larger effort to reduce the number of uninsured.
“This is just a precursor to universal health care,” Coleman said. “Texas is obviously behind every other state in terms of how we insure children.”
Here is a copy of the Families USA report. One caution: the organization notes there were 710,690 children enrolled in CHIP in Texas in 2007. That number refers to all the children covered at any time during that year. There are now about 450,000 children in CHIP in Texas, and in 2007 there were between 300,000 and 350,000 in any given month.
A drug company has agreed to pay Texas $30 million in Medicaid funds for unlawfully marketing the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa, attorney general Greg Abbott said today.
Indiana-based Eli Lilly & Co. will pay $1.4 billion — $800 million to states and the federal government and a $615 million criminal fine — as a result of a multi-state investigation, Abbott said.
“This agreement protects patients by preventing the defendant from conducting these unlawful marketing campaigns, and it serves the taxpayers, who were stuck paying the bill when Medicaid patients were prescribed Zyprexa for unapproved uses,” Abbott said.
Medicaid is a federal-state health insurance program for low-income people and people with disabilities. Of the $30 million recovered for Texas’ Medicaid program, $13.6 million will go to the federal government, said Abbott spokesman Jerry Strickland.
Texas was one of seven states that worked to secure the agreement, Abbott said. Forty-nine states are eligible to recover money under the deal (Alaska settled on its own, Strickland said).
Abbott said that Eli Lilly:
Deceptively suggested in the “Viva Zyprexa” marketing campaign that the drug was appropriate for treating depression and anxiety in children and the elderly when it had only been approved by the FDA for adult schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Downplayed or omitted information about side effects such as weight gain and diabetes.
Urged doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for off-label uses not approved by the FDA, such as to treat irritability and disrupted sleep.
Abbott said his Medicaid fraud units have recovered more than $300 million since he took office.
Three lawmakers today announced a proposal they say will give Texas nurses a stronger voice in staffing decisions at hospitals.
State Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, and state Rep. Susan King, R-Abilene, proposed putting into law a rule that requires Texas hospitals to have a nursing staffing committee. The proposal, Senate Bill 476, requires that the committee report directly to the hospital board and that half of its members be nurses.
“This legislation makes it possible for nurses on the front lines to work collaboratively with hospitals to ensure the highest quality health care is delivered,” said Howard, a former nurse.
Nelson said the proposal will improve working conditions for nurses — something she said is critical given the state’s nursing shortage. Howard said Texas hospitals have a nurse vacancy rate of 11 percent.
Nelson said the proposal — which prohibits mandatory overtime policies — would also be good for patients.
“No Texan wants their loved one to receive care from someone who’s tired from working back-to-back overnight shifts,” Nelson said.
Nelson, who is chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, said she does not yet know how much the proposal would cost.
Howard said that unlike mandated ratios, her group’s proposal takes into account “the unique needs of each patient, the specific expertise and experience of each nurse on a particular shift and the particular characteristics of each hospital.”
The Health and Human Services Commission today announced a program that will repay the medical education loans of doctors and dentists who treat Medicaid patients.
The program is part of $150 million in initiatives Texas is implementing to improve access to health services for children on Medicaid as required by a settlement over the Frew v. Hawkins lawsuit. The Legislature set aside $1.8 billion in response to the Frew lawsuit, much of which is for increasing reimbursement rates for services doctors and dentists provide to children on Medicaid.
Yesterday, the lead lawyer representing Texas children on Medicaid in the Frew case said the state is violating terms of a court order by failing to spend the money for the access initiatives as quickly as required. State officials say they’re not violating the order.
Under the new program, doctors and dentists who meet certain requirements will be eligible for up to $140,000 in loan repayments over four years. It is set to begin in March. Up to 1,200 doctors and dentists could participate each year.
“This program is an innovative way to address the root cause of one of our greatest challenges - the lack of doctors taking Medicaid and an overall lack of pediatric specialists,” said Texas Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins. “This will help Texas recruit and retain new doctors, especially in hard to serve areas.”
The program is expected to cost $300,000 in state funds this year, and would eventually grow to $42.6 million a year, state officials said.
The Frew case was filed in 1993 by Texas mothers who said their children did not get the preventive health care that the federal government guarantees under Medicaid.
The lead lawyer representing Texas children in a lawsuit about health care access under Medicaid says the state is violating the terms of a 2007 court order.
State officials say they’re complying with the order in the case Frew v. Hawkins, which, among other things, requires Texas to spend $150 million in state funds “toward strategic initiatives to improve … access to services.”
But Susan Zinn, who represents the children, said the court made it clear that the money was to be spent in the 2008 and 2009 budget years and that the state plans to spend less than a third of that during that time.
“They’re obliged under the court’s order to spend all of that this biennium, and they seem to be violating that order,” Zinn said. “From our perspective, that money is not just money — it’s supposed to result in improved access to health care for children in Medicaid in Texas.”
Zinn said she hasn’t decided whether to take further legal action.
Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Commission (whose executive commissioner, Albert Hawkins, is the defendant in the suit), said that the state plans to spend $46.3 million on the initiatives during the 2008 and 2009 budget years — a number she expects to increase as more projects are approved. She said the commission believes the court order requires the money to be appropriated — not necessarily spent — during the 2008 and 2009 budget years.
“We are complying with the corrective action order, and we’re continuing to evaluate additional projects for the strategic initiative funding,” Goodman said.
An example of an initiative that’s already up and running is a project that provides dental care to very young children to try to prevent dental problems in the first place, Zinn said.
About a third of Texas children are in the Medicaid program, the federal-state health insurance for low-income people.
Goodman said the commission created an advisory council of health experts to review proposals, and that those recommended by the council are forwarded to the Legislative Budget Board and the governor’s office for approval.
“This means it takes some time to get proposals up and running,” she said. “We want to make sure the funding for strategic initiatives is spent wisely.”
The 2007 agreement between the lawyers representing the state and the children also required the state to pay dentists and doctors an average of 25 to 50 percent more to see Medicaid patients. Goodman said the state’s first priority was to implement that portion of the settlement, for which the Legislature approved $1.3 billion in 2007. The state has increased those rates, Goodman said.
The Frew case was filed in 1993 by Texas mothers who said their children did not get the preventive health care that the federal government guarantees under Medicaid.
Lawmakers proposing a statewide workplace smoking ban will file their legislation Wednesday morning, according to state Rep. Myra Crownover, R-Denton, an author of the bill.
State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, has said he’ll file the same legislation in the Senate. The proposal would ban smoking in indoor workplaces, including bars and restaurants.
In 2007, the House passed a watered-down version of the ban and the Senate proposal stalled in committee. Since then, as I reported in a Christmas Day story, Dallas and Corpus Christi have strengthened smoke-free laws, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation has made a statewide ban its top priority in Texas.
Crownover said the measure will save lives by reducing exposure to secondhand smoke.
“The time is right and we need to act on this,” Crownover said. “The resistance to it has been that it is an individual liberty issue or private property rights issue. This bill positively does not tell anyone whether they should or should not smoke. It does say if they choose to smoke, they should just step outside.”
Some business owners say they’ve lost money in cities that have banned smoking. For example, Beaumont resident Jake Plaia told me last month that his business — providing and maintaining jukeboxes, pool tables and games for bars and restaurants — dropped after the ban in that city began in 2006. That’s because fewer patrons are playing indoor games, he said.
Worth noting: The expected House speaker, state Rep. Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, was not among the 61 authors or co-authors of the 2007 proposal to ban smoking.
“I’m in the process of talking to him,” Crownover said.
Texas teens are more likely to become pregnant than those in any other state, and children in the Lone Star State are among the most likely in the nation to die from abuse or neglect, according to a new report by Texans Care for Children, an advocacy group.
“The lesson here is that under-investing in our children has real consequences,” said Eileen Garcia-Matthews, the group’s executive director.
The report (click here to read) also found that infant mortality has climbed in Texas and that more Texas children are repeating early grades.
Although Texas ranking poorly among states on children’s issues is not exactly new (we have the nation’s highest rate of uninsured children, for example), the report did point out some areas where Texas has gotten better for children.
The state has improved in child support collection, ranking in the top 10 states on that issue. Also, Texas has improved in vaccinating children, the report said.
A Texas Child Protective Services investigation has found that of the 439 children removed from the Yearning for Zion ranch in West Texas earlier this year, 275 were abused or neglected.
The final report released today said that 12 girls were victims of sexual abuse because they entered “spiritual marriages” at ages 12 to 15. Seven of them have had children, the report said. It also said that another 263 children suffered neglect.
“For the Department of Family and Protective Services, the Yearning for Zion case is about sexual abuse of girls and children who were taught that underage marriages are a way of life,” said the report by the Department of Family and Protective Services. “It is about parents who condoned illegal underage marriages and adults who failed to protect young girls — it has never been about religion.”
The children were returned to the ranch owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints after the Texas Supreme Court ruled May 29 that the state overreached in removing the children. The CPS investigation continued, the findings of which were presented to Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins in the new report from the department.
Church member Willie Jessop said the report didn’t prove the abuse or neglect allegations were true.
“We believe it’s a desperate attempt to save face for the barbaric actions committed on April 3,” when the state removed the children, Jessop said. “They have spent millions and millions of taxpayer dollars trying to justify what they did.”
Texas will automatically extend Medicaid coverage for about 34,000 children in Southeast Texas, because Hurricane Ike may have made it difficult for families to receive and return applications by mail, Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins said today.
“Given the widespread damage and disruption in services caused by Ike, we believe it’s wise to err on the side of caution and give these families more time to renew their children’s coverage,” Hawkins said.
The 90-day extension begins Jan. 1.
There are about 1.7 million Texas children enrolled in Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program. State projections last week showed that 72,000 fewer children could be enrolled in Medicaid in January, more than half of them in areas affected by Ike, which came ashore near Galveston Sept. 13.
Families must renew their applications every six months. Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the commission, said that enrollment typically falls in January, but that the agency received a lower than usual number of application packets.
The agency surveyed more than 100 southeast Texas families, and one in four said they never received a renewal form, Goodman said. Of those who did receive the form, nearly 80 percent said they returned it, she said.
The extension does not apply in cases where the state received the application and determined that the family was not eligible, Goodman said.
Dr. Laura Guerra-Cardus, Texas policy director for the Children’s Defense Fund, said she’s pleased with the extension. But she said “the crisis highlights the fact that eligible children are at high risk for getting dropped every time they have to apply.”
In January, 72,000 fewer children could be enrolled in Medicaid than in December, according to preliminary numbers from the Health and Human Services Commission.
The majority of the decline is concentrated around Houston — the part of the state most affected by Hurricane Ike three months ago, said commission spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman.
The children still have coverage through the end of the month, and the commission is examining the cause of the “significant decline,” Goodman said.
“It really is too early to tell,” she said. “We hope to know in the next day or two whether we need to take some additional action.”
For example, she said, the commission may extend children’s coverage for Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program. There are about 1.7 million Texas children enrolled in Medicaid.
The hurricane is a factor because the state had to close several enrollment offices after the storm and when they re-opened, they were “besieged” with emergency food stamp applications, Goodman said.
Advocates for low-income Texans today called on the state to take immediate action to ensure that eligible children aren’t dropped from Medicaid.
“In the aftermath of Hurricane Ike and a worsening economy, it’s critical that safety net programs are operating as efficiently as possible so that struggling families can get the help they need,” said Barbara Best, Texas executive director of the Children’s Defense Fund.
Best said she has talked to a number of parents who said they attempted to renew their children’s Medicaid in September or October but were never able to get them enrolled.
“We suspect that many lost their coverage wrongfully,” Best said.
Texas and Accenture LLP have reached a final agreement on ending a major social services deal that they agreed to cancel in the spring of 2007.
Under the settlement, the Accenture-led Texas Access Alliance will forgo $70.9 million in payments for services provided to the state. Accenture subcontractor Maximus will pay the state $20 million in cash and provide a $10 million credit toward future work done by Maximus, state officials said.
The original 2005 contract was worth $899 million over five years. Texas hired Accenture to manage the Children’s Health Insurance Program and to run call centers enrolling Texans in programs such as food stamps and Medicaid.
The mutual decision to cancel the contract came after reports of Texans having trouble enrolling in social services.
A former Major League Baseball player who Texas officials say owes hundreds of thousands of dollars in child support was arrested yesterday in Los Angeles, according to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office.
Troy Neel, 43, who played for the Oakland Athletics from 1992 to 1994, owes $724,345 to his ex-wife, who lives in Austin, said Abbott spokesman Jerry Strickland. The former couple have two children, now 20 and 13 years old.
Neel had been living in the Republic of Vanuatu in the South Pacific, where he owns an island resort, Strickland said. A federal grand jury indicted him in March 2005 on charges of federal criminal non-support, Strickland said.
“He literally is one of the most heinous child support evaders in the history of Texas,” Strickland said. “To look at the irresponsibility of not providing for his children while he was on this island enjoying the good life is really surprising.”
Neel was arrested by officials with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, Strickland said. For years, Abbott’s office has been working with Johnny Sutton, the U.S. district attorney for the Western district of Texas, as well as with federal health and human services officials to arrest Neel, Strickland said. He said Neel is being held in Los Angeles and will be brought back to Texas.
Neel faces up to two years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000, Abbott’s office said.
As early as tomorrow, Texas and Accenture LLP could have a final agreement on ending a deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars to enroll Texans in programs such as food stamps and Medicaid, state officials said today.
This comes a year and nine months after the Health and Human Services Commission and the consulting firm agreed to part ways on a contract that was originally worth $899 million over five years.
Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the commission, said the two sides are “very close” to signing an agreement, which she said was likely to happen tomorrow or Monday.
This doesn’t change anything for recipients of social services, Goodman said. It’s been more than a year since Accenture has done the enrollment work for the state. In the meantime, former Accenture subcontractor Maximus has run the enrollment call centers. The commission is planning to hire a company to do that work on a more permanent basis and is now reviewing bids, Goodman said.
The mutual decision to cancel the contract came after reports of Texans having trouble enrolling in social services.
Negotiations over how much money each side owed the other stalled the final agreement, Goodman said.
“It’s a very complex agreement,” Goodman said. “It took us nine months to negotiate it in the first place.”
And, she said, there was less urgency than when the contract was being created.
“There’s a different level of motivation when you’re trying to sign an agreement than when you’re trying to unwind an agreement,” she said.
Chanting “53 murdered on your watch,” protesters interrupted a meeting of a state council on disability services today in response to a recent federal report that found that at least 53 people died in the past year of preventable conditions at institutions for Texans with mental retardation.
Wearing spray-painted T-shirts with “53” on the front and watches on the back, 16 protesters organized by an advocacy group called Community Now! held signs and dumped 53 red watches on the floor, continuing their chants as Department of Aging and Disability Services Commissioner Addie Horn asked them to “respectfully allow council members to move forward” with their agenda.
Advocates for Texans with disabilities today called on the state to take immediate action to improve conditions at institutions for people with mental retardation in the wake of a federal report this week that said the facilities fail to protect residents.
Advocacy Inc. said that Texas should prohibit use of restraints such as straightjackets and should place a moratorium on admissions to all 13 facilities, which are known as state schools.
“If not, more people are going to die,” said Beth Mitchell, managing attorney of Advocacy, a federally funded organization that has the legal authority to investigate abuse and neglect cases at state schools.
Texas’ institutions for people with mental retardation fail to provide adequate health care and to protect residents from harm, a U.S. Department of Justice investigation has found.
“While specific findings vary among the Facilities, we find that there are systemic deficiencies throughout the Facilities,” said a letter to Gov. Rick Perry from Grace Chung Becker, acting assistant attorney general.
There are 13 such institutions in Texas, including the Austin State School.
Federal officials also found that the state schools fail to provide adequate behavioral services and fail to provide services in a setting most appropriate to people’s needs.
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, in Austin today for a motivational seminar, said that nationally, the Republican Party needs to welcome voters who may disagree with others over social issues such as abortion. The former mayor of New York, who floundered this year as a GOP presidential candidate, favors abortion rights himself.
He said today it’s too early for him to be thinking about running for governor of New York in 2010 or for president in 2012.
Giuliani, a partner in Houston-based Bracewell & Giuliani, called his leading Texas supporter, Gov. RIck Perry, an effective governor who’s part of the party’s national debate.
In the past year, 170 Texas infants and young children died while sleeping with a parent or someone else, the Department of Family and Protective Services said today.
The children didn’t necessarily die because of the sleeping arrangement, officials said. But the data — based on the 2008 state budget year — show that the children were sleeping with someone at the time of death.
“We aren’t telling parents they should never sleep with their children, but we are urging parents to take precautions to create a safe sleeping environment for infants at all times,” said Joyce James, assistant commissioner at the department. “The younger the child, the greater the risk something could go wrong.”
In more than half the cases, the children were younger than three months, officials said.
Adult beds “may carry a risk of accidental entrapment and suffocation” of babies, according to a new tip sheet from the Department of State Health Services.
This is the first time state officials have analyzed Child Protective Services child death investigations to determine how many children died while sleeping with adults or other children.
In one case, a 7-month old boy died Feb. 23 in Austin, said Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the protective services department. The father had fallen asleep with the baby on a futon, the spokesman said. Crimmins could not say what the cause of death was.
State officials released these tips for adults who choose to sleep with a child (which is known as co-sleeping):
Don’t sleep with a small child on a couch, sofa, waterbed, or in a chair or recliner.
Avoid any soft bedding, loose bed pillows, loose throw pillows, blankets, or any items which could suffocate an infant.
Don’t allow an infant to sleep with other young children.
Don’t drink alcohol or use drugs beforehand (including prescription medication that has a sedative effect).
Texas Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins today announced that Anne Heiligenstein will take over as commissioner of the Department of Family and Protective Services.
Heiligenstein, now deputy executive commissioner for social services at the Health and Human Services Commission, succeeds Carey Cockerell, who retired Aug. 31.
She inherits a department that was in the spotlight earlier this year for the controversial removal of more than 400 children from an Eldorado ranch owned by a polygamous sect. The children were returned after the Texas Supreme Court said the state overreached.
Heiligenstein’s appointment, which is effective Dec. 1, was approved by Gov. Rick Perry, the commission said. She takes over a department that runs child and adult protective services, licenses child-care facilities and works to prevent abuse and neglect of elderly and disabled Texans.
“Anne knows these programs inside and out,” Hawkins said. “She brings experience, commitment and passion to the job, and I am confident Anne will continue the improvements we’ve seen at DFPS.”
Her three decades of human services experience includes working as director of policy and projects for First Lady Laura Bush and director of health and human services policy for former Gov. George W. Bush.
“This is my passion,” Heiligenstein said in a statement. “I look forward to working with state and community leaders and our dedicated DFPS staff to protect our state’s children, our seniors and those with disabilities. I can’t imagine a greater or more humbling opportunity than to help provide a voice to those who often can’t articulate their own hopes or fears.”
She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a master’s degree from Trinity University.
Texas nurses rallied at the Capitol today, arguing for legislation limiting the number of patients per nurse. They say it’s critical for providing proper care — and to keep nurses on the job amid a nursing shortage.
“When there are too many patients to each nurse, we can’t get to all of these patients and be on top of the things we’re supposed to be on top of,” said Beverly Leonard of Austin, a registered nurse with 40 years’ experience.
The nurses, who are members of the National Nurses Organizing Committee - Texas, also want a legal guarantee that they can serve as patient advocates and to have Texas establish “real whistle-blower protections” for nurses who expose unsafe conditions. Leonard said legislation on the proposals has not been filed for the 2009 legislative session, but that her group is in talks with several lawmakers.
The patient ratio proposal is modeled after a California law that sets minimum ratios that vary by type of care (for example, one patient per nurse for an operating room, four patients per nurse in an emergency room).
Leonard said that “the way to go is unionization,” because “if we don’t hold the (hospital administration’s) seat to the fire … hospitals will not on their own do nurse-patient ratios.”
The idea, however, has critics. Toni Inglis, a neonatal intensive care nurse in Austin and a member of the Texas/American Nurses Association, writes on Statesman.com this week that California’s ratio law “drove up already obscenely inflated healthcare costs.” She also wrote that Texas nurses don’t need to be unionized and don’t need California groups to speak for them.
The group that gathered at the Capitol is the Texas branch of a national committee founded by the California Nurses Association. The media contact for Thursday’s rally, Shum Preston, said by phone from Oakland, Calif., that the Austin event was organized by Texans.
Texas schools would be required to notify parents if there is no full-time nurse assigned to the campus for 30 school days or more under a proposal filed by two state lawmakers.
The proposal by state Rep. Garnet Coleman and State Sen. Rodney Ellis, both Houston Democrats, is one of several hundred bills that have been filed for the legislative session that begins in January. Bill filing began Monday.
“We assume every school has a nurse, but it doesn’t,” Coleman said. “When it comes to children’s health, what we know is that emotional disturbance and particularly child-onset illnesses are caught by school nurses.”
Texas will provide emergency food stamps to Hurricane Ike victims, the Health and Human Services Commission said today.
“We know that many Texans saw an unexpected loss of income this month because Hurricane Ike disrupted their jobs, their workplaces and their lives,” said Texas Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins. “Those Texans may now qualify for special hurricane assistance to provide food for their families while they get back on their feet.”
Residents of 29 counties are eligible if they meet certain requirements. For example, a family of four earning up to $2,915 this month may qualify. Call 211 for more information or visit any of the Commission’s benefits offices.
Texas received a federal waiver to make the food stamps available.
The eligible counties are: Angelina, Austin, Brazoria, Chambers, Cherokee, Fort Bend, Galveston, Grimes, Hardin, Harris, Houston, Jasper, Jefferson, Liberty, Madison, Matagorda, Montgomery, Nacogdoches, Newton, Orange, Polk, Sabine, San Augustine, San Jacinto, Trinity, Tyler, Walker, Waller and Washington.
Officials said more counties may be added later. Texans who live outside the eligible counties and lost food because of the hurricane should contact their local benefits office or call 211.
Texans who already receive food stamps will have a portion of their September benefits automatically replaced on their Lone Star cards, the card that food stamp recipients use to buy groceries.
The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas has elected officers. Texas voters last year approved Prop. 15, which created that entity and authorizes it to issue $3 billion in bonds over 10 years to pay for cancer research and prevention grants.
The officers are:
Chairman James Mansour of Austin, president of Telephone Management; vice chairman Malcolm Gillis of Houston, Rice University professor; secretary Dee Kelly of Fort Worth, lawyer.
For more on these three and the other members of the institute’s oversight committee, see this story
Less than a year after Linda Cannon was laid off from her job at Advanced Micro Devices, she gained 60 pounds in a period of six weeks and doctors told her that her health was in danger.
Cannon, a single mother who suffers from a thyroid condition, said that if it weren’t for the services of a local health clinic, she would not have been able to afford health insurance — and her condition may have spiraled out of control.
Cannon’s story is one of the many health insurance “horror stories” that a consumer advocacy group is trying to highlight in a national campaign aimed at raising awareness about the millions of Americans without health insurance. The campaign stopped in Austin today, where organizers pointed out particular problems plaguing Texas: rapidly rising insurance premiums and the highest percentage of uninsured residents (24%) of any state in the nation.
“The real tragedy is not that a few people are having horrible experiences,” campaign director Meg Bohne said. “It’s that so many people are dealing with trying to make really difficult life-changing decisions to get the health care they need.”
Organized by Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, the “Cover America Tour” — which started in New York in May and will make stops at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions — has been documenting stories like Cannon’s through video footage, which you can watch on the group’s website here.
From the everything-you-love-to-eat-may-eventually-kill-you department: A Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit is urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to take processed meats such as hot dogs and bacon out of school lunchrooms.
The Cancer Project says its television commercial on the dangers of processed meat will run in Austin in advance of a hearing here on July 15 on federal nutrition programs such as the National School Lunch Program.
Worth noting: The Cancer Project is an affiliate of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a research and advocacy group that promotes a plant-based diet and alternatives to animal research.
With ominous music playing, the TV spot features video of hot dogs and pizza and kids talking as if they’re adults with cancer.
“Cancer risk starts early,” warns the commercial, which is based on a recent report connecting processed meat to colorectal cancer. “Even small amounts of processed meats can lead to adult cancers.”
No hot dogs, sausage, pepperoni, deli meat or bacon at school? The Cancer Project likely has a tough battle ahead.
Carey Cockerell, commissioner of the Department of Family and Protective Services, will retire Aug. 31, state officials announced today.
His agency oversees Child Protective Services, which was recently in the national spotlight for undertaking what state officials say is the largest child welfare operation in U.S. history. CPS removed more than 400 children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch, which is run by members of a polygamous sect, and the state Supreme Court later ordered a lower court to return the children to their parents.
Cockerell joined the agency in January 2005. Since then he has overseen major changes at CPS, including a $248 million reform effort lawmakers ordered in 2005 to add caseworkers and improve training.
“Carey took on one of the most difficult jobs in state government and achieved significant improvements in just a few short years,” Texas Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins said in a statement. “His thorough and thoughtful approach made real reform possible.”
Cockerell had been thinking about retirement since late last year, according to a statement distributed by the Health and Human Services Commission, which oversees the protective services agency.
“I’ll soon be a grandfather, and I’m looking forward to a lot of quality time with my family after four decades of working in state and local programs,” Cockerell said.
The New York Times had an article yesterday questioning whether cycling champ Lance Armstrong’s high-profile personal life is threatening his reputation as a serious anticancer advocate.
The article describes the two Lances: the one pictured in tabloids alongside movie star Kate Hudson and the one who has testified before Congress and last year campaigned for Texas’ $3 billion cancer research initiative.
That Texas initiative passed, and the committee overseeing the new program meets for the first time today.
Last week, after Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst named the final members of the panel, the Lance Armstrong Foundation released a statement from Armstrong that said: “Today we are one step closer to winning the war against cancer. We look forward to beginning this journey with Governor Dewhurst and reaching new heights in Texas and beyond.”
Perhaps more media outlets would have published his statement if it had included information on his personal life — but probably not the kind of media outlets the foundation had in mind.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst just announced his appointments to a panel overseeing the state’s new $3 billion cancer research and prevention program.
An Austinite is among them: Jimmy Mansour, president of Telephone Management. Dewhurst’s other picks are Lionel Sosa of San Antonio, a media consultant, and Charles Tate of Houston, chairman of Capital Royalty, LP.
“Each of these talented people is making a commitment to the citizens of Texas to work tirelessly to prevent cancer and find a cure for this awful disease that will save countless lives in our state, our nation and our world,” Dewhurst said in a statement.
The appointments come four days before the committee’s first meeting. Gov. Rick Perry and House Speaker Tom Craddick announced their appointments in March, and lawmakers and advocates have called on Dewhurst to make his choices.
The panel oversees the distribution of up to $300 million a year in grants for 10 years. Texas voters last year overwhelmingly approved a bond proposal for the program.
Accenture spokesman Jim McAvoy apologized for the heavily redacted document the company’s lawyers sent me earlier this month.
“I am really sorry, deeply sorry that this happened, and it shouldn’t have happened,” McAvoy said. “It was outrageous.”
I wrote last week
about how Accenture is trying to keep me from getting access to documents I requested from the Health and Human Services Commission regarding negotiations to unravel a major contract to enroll Texans in public assistance. The deal was originally worth $899 million, and the state has paid some $243 million.
The heavily blacked-out document I got from Accenture’s lawyers was a legal brief the company sent Attorney General Greg Abbott explaining that the documents contain trade secrets and should remain private.
Today I got a “revised redacted copy” of the legal brief from the Accenture lawyers. This time, instead of blacking out the information they view as trade secrets, the redacted words are just blank spaces. So the revised version is a little less jarring to look at. And more importantly, there are fewer words redacted.
So the fact that I can read more of this brief is good news. But the brief just explains why the documents I requested should remain private. Frankly, I’m not that interested in all of Accenture’s trade secrets.
What I really want is what I requested in the first place: the documents detailing Accenture’s negotiations with the state of Texas. A lot of taxpayer dollars are at stake.
More than a month ago, I asked the Health and Human Services Commission for some information on its split with Accenture LLP, the company hired for what was originally an $899 million, five-year deal to enroll Texans in social services.
The company and the commission agreed more than a year ago to part ways, and I was working on a story about why the divorce still wasn’t final.
I was looking for correspondence between Accenture and the commission regarding the unraveling of the deal.
Accenture is fighting to keep those documents private. On June 6, Accenture lawyers sent Attorney General Greg Abbott a letter and a legal brief saying that the information I requested contains trade secrets and confidential information that is exempt from disclosure under the Texas Public Information Act.
“The particular types of exempt information so pervade the responsive documents that without them there is virtually nothing of substantive meaning left to the correspondence,” the brief says. “Accordingly, Accenture objects to the release of the correspondence in its entirety.”
The Accenture lawyers sent me a copy of the legal brief, but for some reason, my copy is a little hard to read. Here is a sample page of my redacted brief. I particularly like the paragraph that is entirely black except for three apparently inoffensive words: “It is a.”
The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship this week named Austinite Cathy Bonner its new president and CEO.
Along with cyclist Lance Armstrong, Bonner was a leading force behind the $3 billion cancer research initiative that Texas voters approved in November.
Bonner will move to Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress on behalf of cancer survivors, she said.
“With a new administration and Congress, the war on cancer will be front and center and part of the debate in health care reform,” she said.
She begins the gig on Aug. 1.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said in a statement that Bonner “is a visionary leader who dreams big and knows how to make things happen.”
SAN ANGELO — A judge today approved a Child Protective Services plan for what Sarah and James Jessop need to do to get back their five children, who are spread across the state in foster care.
Similar scenarios are playing out in five courtrooms in the Tom Green County Courthouse today as judges consider the future of more than 450 children removed from an Eldorado ranch run by a polygamous sect.
James Jessop’s lawyer, Jerri Lynn Ward, said she was pleased that the judge specifically said the children, who have been home schooled, did not have to go to public school.
“That’s about all I was happy with,” she said. What she really wanted was for the kids to be returned to their parents.
“They need us,” Sarah Jessop said.
“Any parent knows what a child needs,” James Jessop said. “They need a kind, loving mother and a kind, loving father.” He said the children have not been abused.
The federal agency that oversees food stamps this week agreed to let Texas expand a new computer enrollment system in a limited way.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service had warned the state Health and Human Services Commission that it had concerns about the computer system known as TIERS, in part because the state has struggled to process food stamp cases as quickly as required. Processing time for cases in TIERS has lagged significantly behind cases processed in the state’s older computer system.
This week, William Ludwig of the Food and Nutrition Service told Hawkins in a letter that Texas may expand use of TIERS, but only to 22 percent of food stamp cases. About 13 percent are in TIERS now, according to commission spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman.
Ludwig wrote that although the state has made efforts to improve customer service, “far too many approvals remain untimely and call center performance needs to be more constant.”
The state has long planned to expand use of TIERS (Texas Integrated Eligibility Redesign System) statewide to enroll people in food stamps, Medicaid and other programs. That has been controversial.
Specifically, she wanted him to more thoroughly explain the impact of putting hundreds of the sect children into the foster care system and what policy changes may be needed.
• “Even with the addition of the FLDS children to our foster care system, there are thousands fewer children in foster care than there were 18 months ago,” Cockerell wrote. “The addition of 463 children represents an increase of less than three percent in the number of children in Texas foster care.”
• Though many of the staff members who were sent to San Angelo have returned to their normal duties, others will be needed to handle the needs of the sect children, including 42 caseworkers who will track their progress in foster care.
• Cockerell does not yet have any suggestions on policy changes or legislation needed.
Is Nelson satisfied with Cockerell’s written response? An aide said this morning she’s still reviewing it.
State Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, said that she’s not satisfied with what Commissioner Carey Cockerell of the Department of Family and Protective Services told the panel today about the operation in Eldorado.
She asked senators not to ask Cockerell any follow-up questions publicly so as not to jeopardize the ongoing investigation.
“I agreed to this format with the understanding that the agency would cover the topics we discussed,” Nelson said in a statement, referring to her request that Cockerell discuss the impact of the Eldorado case on the foster care system. “That didn’t happen at the hearing, which concerns me because, as policy makers, we have a responsibility to ensure that the agency is fulfilling its mission. We have asked for a written response by the end of the day to the questions we put to the agency and are now awaiting that response.”
Nelson did not mention these concerns about Cockerell’s testimony during the hearing, which is still in progress. Senators are discussing ongoing trouble with the foster care system (high staff turnover, for example).
UPDATE: Later in the hearing, Nelson told Cockerell she thought he did not provide complete information on the four Eldorado topics she requested he discuss (update on investigation/welfare of kids, challenges from policy/resources standpoint, impact on system as a whole, any needed legislation the agency has identified for next session). Cockerell said it wasn’t his intention not to fully answer her questions. A spokeswoman for the agency said it’s too early to address some of the topics, such as what legislation might be needed. The spokeswoman, Jennifer Sims, said the agency will provide the written answers Nelson requested but won’t yet be able to offer much detail.
State child welfare workers want to know why 41 of the children removed from the polygamous ranch near Eldorado have a history of broken or fractured bones.
That is according to Commissioner Carey Cockerell of the Department of Family and Protective Services, who revealed new details about the West Texas operation during a hearing today of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. More than 400 children are now in foster care around the state as officials investigate suspected abuse.
During the meeting at the Capitol, Cockerell also told senators that when the children were in shelters in San Angelo with their mothers, state officials tried using three different ID bracelets but that the families tampered with all of them. It was also difficult to identify the children and women because women switched children, clothes and the children’s clothes, he said. The women are accustomed to “sharing motherly duties, including breastfeeding,” he said.
Cockerell said every decision he and others in the agency made was based on ensuring the children’s safety and dignity.
Citing the ongoing investigation, Senator Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, chairwoman of the committee, asked that senators not publicly ask Cockerell follow-up questions.
“All of us are concerned for the welfare of these children,” Nelson said.
At a hearing on foster care tomorrow at the Capitol, members of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee will get an update on the children from the polygamous ranch in Eldorado, who are now in foster care around the state.
The meeting in the Senate Chamber at 9 a.m. will likely focus on foster care issues not related to Eldorado. But Commissioner Carey Cockerell of the Department of Family and Protective Services is expected tell senators the latest from West Texas and discuss the impact of adding 463 children into an already-crowded system.
Senators are not supposed to ask Cockerell follow-up questions about Eldorado during the public hearing so as not to jeopardize the ongoing investigation, according to an aide to state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, chairwoman of the committee. They are being asked to have follow-up conversations on their own, the aide said.
Last Thursday, three buses loaded with children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch prepared to leave San Angelo shelters for foster care in another part of the state when the Texas Third Court of Appeals set a hearing for today in Austin.
Since the hearing related to a request by lawyers for 48 mothers that children not be moved, Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office had legal questions “about precisely why the kids would be moved,” said Krista Piferrer, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry.
So Perry’s office ordered Child Protective Services to keep the buses from moving, she said. There were about 49 children and adults on the buses, she said.
“When the state’s chief lawyer calls with some legal questions or concerns, our office thought it was best practice to stall the buses,” she said.
She said the children stayed on the air-conditioned buses for about 20 minutes until “the attorney general’s office was satisfied with the information they received” from the governor’s office and CPS. Then, the governor’s office gave the go-ahead to continue moving the children to foster care shelters and group homes around Texas.
A spokesman for Abbott declined to comment.
“It was more of a better safe than sorry” situation, Piferrer said. “It went by in a snap.”
The appeals court denied the request to keep the children in San Angelo and canceled the hearing.
Readers have been asking whether residents of the polygamous ranch in Eldorado run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have relied heavily on public assistance.
They ask because FLDS communities in other states have been accused of welfare fraud. For example, the Los Angeles Times reported in 2001 that as many as half the residents of the FLDS center of Hildale, Utah, were on public assistance. The fraud comes in when plural wives claim not to know where their husbands are, the article says.
But it doesn’t appear that the residents of the YFZ Ranch in West Texas relied heavily on public assistance. Though statistics aren’t available for individual families or addresses for privacy reasons, Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, gave me these numbers for Schleicher County, which includes Eldorado. Keep in mind these numbers are for the entire 2,800-resident county and that easily more than 500 people lived at the ranch before the state pulled out the children during the recent raid.
Schleicher County TANF cases (cash assistance program): There are no current cases.
Food stamps: 122 recipients in September 2005; 203 recipients in April 2008
Children’s Health Insurance Program: 111 children in January 2003; 63 children in April 2008
Medicaid: 262 people (including 160 children) in September 2006; 283 people (including 182 children) in April 2008
These numbers leave a lot of questions and certainly don’t give us a definitive explanation of how common it was at the ranch to be on public assistance. But clearly, everyone there wasn’t enrolled in Medicaid.
Mary Batchelor, director of Principle Voices, a Utah-based group that advocates for fundamentalist Mormons, said welfare fraud is one of many stereotypes unfairly linked to polygamy.
“The fact that polygamy itself is associated with abuse, underage marriage, welfare fraud is just not true,” she said. “It may well be true of some members who practice polygamy — just like any part of our society. But it’s not true of everyone. It’s not true of the majority.”
For more on the raid — and what people are saying about the state’s decision to remove all the children from the ranch — see our Sunday story
The child welfare operation in Eldorado will likely be costly for state agencies and local governments.
So today, Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick asked Comptroller Susan Combs in a letter to allow the Health and Human Services Commission to cover costs for state and local government entities.
“It is our intent that allowable emergency costs will be reimbursed to the appropriate agencies either through budget execution, an emergency appropriation next session, or another appropriate measure,” said a letter from Perry, Dewhurst and Craddick.
Expenses associated with the operation in Tom Green and Schleicher counties include everything from additional Child Protective Services cases to the cost of court representation for people who cannot afford a lawyer. That cost normally falls to the county, but the letter said: “we recognize that unrecovered costs would likely cause severe hardship for the involved counties.”
“Ensuring the safety and welfare of Texas children is our top priority,” they wrote.
Lance Armstrong has been in Washington over the last couple days, meeting with senators and doing the other things he does to raise awareness of issues surrounding cancer.
Friday he spoke to the Intercultural Cancer Council, a group that seeks policies and other solutions to decrease cancer rates in minority communities.
He noted that Friday was the 40th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and he reminded the audience that in 1958 King talked about the disparity in health care as one of the great injustices in society. Armstrong questioned how much things have changed in the 50 years since.
“Things have to change,” Armstrong said.
He also recalled a doctor who told him that the disparity between what society knows how to do, and what it actually does, to fight the disease is a moral and ethical failure.
“As somebody that, I suppose, perhaps was given the best care, we take those things for granted and we shouldn’t,” Armstrong said. “As long as that divide exists, we’re all going to lose.”
He told the hundreds of people in the audience that one thing they could do was elect a candidate who understands that cancer “doesn’t care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, if you’re black or you’re white, if you’re rich or you’re poor.”
Here are some video excerpts from the rest of his speech:
Cohen, a Houston Democrat, was the author of 2007 legislation that mandated the fee to pay for sexual assault prevention programs and health insurance for low-income Texans.
Cohen said that, if necessary, she’ll work during the 2009 session to refine the fee.
“If we have to make some adjustments, we’ll make them,” she said, adding that the fee had overwhelming support from the Legislature.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott plans to appeal the ruling, a spokesman said.
Kerry Weems, acting administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, was in Austin today to encourage the local health care community to apply to be one of a dozen sites around the country for a Medicare test project on electronic health records.
The five-year project would give doctors incentive payments to use electronic health records in their practices.
“This is a way of improving physicians’ practices and speeding adoption” of electronic health records, Weems said.
If a doctor adopts electronic health records, all patients — not just Medicare patients — would benefit, Weems said. Using them has been shown to reduce the cost of — and improve the quality of — health care, he said. Electronic health records help reduce duplicative tests, cut down on doctors’ administrative burden, improve management of chronic diseases and reduce hospitalization, he said.
Individual doctors could earn up to $58,000 in incentive payments — and group practices up to $290,000 — during the five-year demonstration project. The money would come from what Medicare expects to save through the use of the electronic records.
“This is real money,” Weems said.
Weems said he expects about 30 communities to apply for the competition by the May deadline.
