A state program that helps with speech and occupational therapy and other services is in need of a new funding strategy, the officials say. They’ve instructed the state to craft a plan to ensure such services are available for all eligible Texans.
Edgar Walters
Edgar Walters worked at the Tribune from 2013 to 2020, most recently covering health and human services. Before that, he had a political reporting fellowship with the Berliner Zeitung, a daily newspaper in Berlin. He is a graduate of the Plan II Honors Program at the University of Texas at Austin, where he worked as an editor for The Daily Texan. When not in the newsroom or at the Capitol, he could be found on the volleyball court, standing 6 feet, 7 inches tall.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
Essential workers and vulnerable Texans will be first in line for a coronavirus vaccine, state says
State officials are asking doctors, nurses and pharmacists to identify “critical populations” as they predict an initial shortage of coronavirus vaccine doses.
Posted in
State Government
Who is Nate Paul, the real estate investor linked to abuse-of-office allegations against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton?
Earlier in his career, media reports called the now 33-year-old real estate investor a “wunderkind,” a “rising star” and a “prodigy.” Now he’s fighting more than a dozen bankruptcies and has been linked to criminal allegations against an embattled Texas politician.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
Medical schools, hospitals and plenty of coronavirus: How Texas became a leading COVID-19 research hub
Two new trials in the Houston area are recruiting participants to study whether giving people infusions of blood from recovered COVID-19 patients can help treat early-stage infections or even prevent people from catching the disease.
Posted in
Health care
After Ginsburg’s death, high stakes for Texas’ legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act
Experts say the Supreme Court is unlikely to strike down the law in its entirety. Texas’ GOP leaders have yet to produce a promised plan to replace it.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
How a glitchy computer system skewed Texas’ coronavirus data and hampered its pandemic response
Local health officials describe the electronic system as “cumbersome,” “archaic” and “really slow,” though its performance has improved since it was upgraded in August.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
How years of underfunding public health left Texas ill prepared for the pandemic
Budget cuts meant skimpier caches of protective equipment, and Texas’ chronic shortage of public health workers has made the response more difficult, experts said.
Posted in
Health care
Texas officials walk back $15 million proposed cuts to women’s and children’s health services
The changes to the budget proposal come after lawmakers and advocates protested the previous plan would hurt vulnerable Texans.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
Texas officials change how the state reports positivity rate after testing backlogs skewed coronavirus data
The Texas Department of State Health Services said it will now rely on a calculation that takes into account the date on which a coronavirus test was administered, rather than when it was reported.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
Texas physicians are losing money during the pandemic. They want lawmakers to make health insurers pay up.
The Texas Academy of Family Physicians is also asking legislators to expand Medicaid insurance coverage to low-income adults and restore funding for a program that studied racial health disparities.