Tag Archives: Health Care
Medicare Covered Her Medication for a Decade. Now, She Could be Spending Thousands Each Month For Migraine Relief.
A federal judge in Austin recently denied a patient’s appeal asking Medicare to cover the skyrocketing cost of her prescription.
Rachel Harger struggles to find the words to describe her pain. She speaks carefully, each word seeming to take significant effort. “You just, you can’t...Read More
The Rural Health Care Crisis, Mapped
Texas is facing a rural health care crisis. How many doctors are in your county?
This story is part of “Critical Condition,” a series investigating Texas’ rural health care crisis. Read Part 1 here. Rural Americans bear the brunt of th...Read More
American Health Care is Broken, Especially in Texas. What Can We Do About It?
Physician Marty Makary’s new book shows how sky-high medical bills can ruin patients’ lives—but puts the burden on individuals to demand change.
Add yet another first place health care ranking no one wants for Texas: We have the highest hospital bills in the country. A new study has found that Texas pr...Read More
Warning Signs
Rural East Texas has some of the highest suicide rates in the state. But the safety net for people who need help is being stretched thin, and some Texans are falling through.
Rural East Texas has some of the highest suicide rates in the state. But the safety net for people who need help is being stretched thin, and some Texans are fa...Read More
‘Breakthrough’ Chronicles Nobel Prize Winner Jim Allison’s Long Fight for Science
Forty years after the immunologist testified at the Texas Legislature in favor of teaching evolution, state leaders are still debating its inclusion in school curriculums.
Nobel Prize winner Jim Allison is used to being considered something of a troublemaker. When he was a kid growing up in small-town Alice, Texas, he battled with...Read More
‘How Can You Do This to People?’: After Rural Hospitals Close in Milam County, Residents Scramble to Find Care
Little River Healthcare shuttered two Milam County hospitals after falling on hard financial times. Now residents are struggling to find care.
Shan Wilson’s surgery will have to wait. The 64-year-old retired Marine was scheduled to have his prostate removed in early January at the only hospital in Ro...Read More
Struggling Rural Hospitals Say They’re Being Preyed Upon by Blue Cross Blue Shield
Hospital administrators throughout Texas say the insurance company is using “strong-arm” tactics to push unfavorable contracts.
It’s hard to keep a hospital running in Iraan, a dusty community of 1,229 people in the middle of the West Texas oil patch. In the 2017 fiscal year, Iraan Gen...Read More
Tinkering with the Human Heart in ‘Ticker’
Set in Houston, Mimi Swartz’s new book delivers an engrossing human drama populated with off-kilter geniuses.
Early in Mimi Swartz’s fascinating Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart, a surgeon with no good options left cuts out a sheep’s heart and...Read More
A Timely, Enraging Documentary Humanizes the Rape Kit Backlog Crisis
Texas lawmakers have turned to crowdfunding to test rape kits, absent adequate state funding.
In 1996, just days after her 17th birthday, Helena was abducted at knifepoint from a self-service car wash near her home in Los Angeles, held for 10 hours and r...Read More
