Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Tom Suehs will call it a career this August. Suehs’ announcement follows news last month that Billy Millwee, the state’s Medicaid director, was retiring, leaving an even bigger void than anticipated at the top of an agency facing billions of dollars in unpaid Medicaid costs and struggling to institute [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Albert Hawkins’
Making money on both ends
I’m glad to hear that the food stamp backlog should be cleared up soon. I’m not so glad to hear that one of the guys who bears responsibility for getting us into that mess in the first place now stands to benefit from the work to get us out of it. Gregg Phillips was the [...]
Feds to Texas: Fix food stamps!
Yet another (bad) way in which our state has distinguished itself. Federal officials say Texas should appoint a food stamp czar to take charge of fixing the application backlogs and high error rates plaguing the program. “All states are feeling the pinch right now because of the economic recession, but I’m not aware of any [...]
Food stamps fail
News item: Budget board denies request for more food stamps workers. 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 [...]
The stimulus and the budget
State Rep. Jim Dunnam, who is the chair of the ad hoc committee that is charged with disbursing federal stimulus funds, gave an update on their proceedings. Among other things, the federal money may free up some state revenues. Normally, the federal government pays about 60 percent of Texas’ Medicaid expenses, a contribution known as [...]