Contents tagged with budget

  • HHS Commissioner to Senate Finance: Spare primary care

    Tags: budget, legislature, payment

    Thursday, February 3, 2011 4:15:00 AM
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    When Tom Suehs, executive commissioner of Texas Health and Human Services, addressed the Senate Finance Committee in a hearing on Feb. 1, he told the 15 senators in no uncertain language that going through with cuts to primary care proposed in the Senate’s draft budget will damage access to care.

    Suehs (pronounced “seas”) is pushing for exceptional items that would reduce the cut in payment for primary care physicians treating kids enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP from 10 percent to 2 percent. This would cost the state around $125 million in general revenue next biennium, according to a Feb. 1 article in Quorum Report.

    “I’m really concerned about having to cut primary care rates for physicians treating children,” Suehs told the committee. “We’ve already cut 2 percent this biennium from when y’all wrote the [2010-2011] budget. I believe that’s about as far as I can tolerate to maintain the access to primary care so I’m asking to put back not all 10 percent, but 8 percent. Exceptional item 1A is for Medicaid children, exceptional item 1B is for CHIP.”

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  • Bleak House: Family medicine and the great budget debate, day one

    Tags: budget, legislature

    Wednesday, January 19, 2011 10:00:00 AM
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    Texas lawmakers got their first chance to comment on the first draft of the House budget for 2012-2013 today, when Appropriations Chair Jim Pitts took questions on the floor. The draft budget is $31.1 billion slimmer than the state’s current budget, coming in at $156.5 billion in all funds. That means general revenue plus federal matching funds.

    The capitol press corps was in fine form, tweeting and texting a constant stream of budget-related news, and filing stories at a fevered pace. Check out the Texas Tribune’s coverage for a healthy dose.

    Several lawmakers were upset over the proposed closure of four community colleges, and massive cuts to public education got a lot of play as well. Lost amid the critiques and complaints was the proposed fate of a set of programs designed to strengthen primary care.

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  • It’s a budget session

    Tags: budget, legislature

    Monday, January 17, 2011 10:15:00 AM
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    The biggest and toughest challenge legislators will face in the 82nd Texas Legislature will be balancing the budget. Comptroller Susan Combs announced that general revenue for the 2012-2013 biennium will likely be $72.2 billion, $14.8 billion less than the general revenue budget for the current biennium, and the shortfall in the current biennium would be $4.3 billion. She did not quantify the size shortfall expected in the next biennium, but the state would be about $27 billion short if lawmakers decided to continue current service levels in all programs.

    Understanding the budget means looking at the two largest spending areas, articles II and III, otherwise known as education and health and human services, respectively. In his acceptance speech as president pro tempore of the Texas Senate, Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, told those in attendance to that it is “impossible to balance the budget” without making cuts to Medicaid and education.

    At more than 1,000 words, the excerpt of the speech is lengthy, but it’s a must-read if you want to understand the next 140 days of the session.

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