Texas Insight’s Recent Reports
- House Select Committee on Opioids and Substance Abuse Parts I and II: This report contains the first and second parts of the House Select Committee on Opioids and Substance Abuse committee meeting focusing on the following interim charge: Monitor and evaluate the implementation of legislation passed by the 85th Legislature regarding the Prescription Monitoring Program. In addition, review the prescribing of addictive drugs by physicians and other health care providers within various geographic regions of this state. Determine the role of health care professionals in preventing overutilization and diversion of addictive prescriptions. Provide recommendations that will improve efforts to prevent overutilization and diversion of addictive prescriptions.
- HHS Transition Legislative Oversight Committee: The Transition Legislative Oversight Committee gathered to hear invited testimony only. A quorum was present. The Committee was established in 2015 by the HHSC Sunset Bill. Programs were functionally aligned within the HHSC division and the bill made them all accountable to the Executive Commissioner. DSHS and DFPS were kept as independent agencies. There was an understanding that this committee would keep oversight over the transformation.
- Health and Human Services Commission Executive Council Meeting: The meeting was convened by Executive Commissioner Charles Smith on Thursday, May 31, 2018. The Executive Commissioner announced that this was his last meeting as the Executive Commissioner and addressed some of the Commission’s accomplishments.
Looking Ahead
June 14, 2018: Palliative Care Interdisciplinary Advisory Council
June 15, 2018: Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Task Force
State and Federal Healthcare News
Texas
- TAB promises legislative agenda that includes ending government mandated paid sick leave
- Cost of ER visits nearly doubled as fees are coded at highest level
- Part 4 of a Dallas Morning News investigation: ‘Glossover of the horror’
- Doctors Scrutinize Overtreatment, As Cancer Death Rates Decline
- Parents vs. the Austin machine
- Supreme Court voids order in Texas immigrant abortion case
- Protesters rally for health care; 7 detained at state office building
- Texas must reveal where it got execution drugs, the Texas Supreme Court affirms
U.S.
- U.S. Justice Department says Obamacare individual mandate unconstitutional
- Every Time I Thought the Purdue Pharma OxyContin Story Was Over, I Was Wrong
- Alabama state lawmaker arrested over alleged Medicare reimbursement scheme
- Lawmakers have sights on middlemen blamed for rising drug costs
- Blood Test Might Predict Pregnancy Due Date and Preterm Birth
- The Chemical Industry Scores a Big Win at the E.P.A
- 7 Surveys That Say A Lot About U.S. Healthcare
- What Do These Political Ads Have in Common? The Opioid Crisis.
- Alex Azar, Health Secretary, Denies Sabotaging Insurance Markets
- Medicare’s Trust Fund is Set to Run Out in 8 Years. Social Security, 16.