By Harvey Rice,
Galveston Bureau Reporter, Houston Chronicle
Updated March 31, 2013 10:53 p.m.

GALVESTON - Texas is diverting millions of dollars of federal money intended to reimburse three state-owned hospitals for uninsured care and shortfalls in Medicaid payments, University of Texas officials say. That money, which is rerouted into a general fund, otherwise would offset expenses that the University of Texas Medical Branch, M.D. Anderson and UT Tyler incur providing care for the uninsured.

UTMB was once known throughout Texas as a haven for the uninsured, but the number of charity cases at the hospital has dropped steeply since Hurricane Ike struck in September 2008, partly because of the lack of reimbursement from the federal program as one of the reasons.

The intent of the federal programs is for the state and federal governments to repay the hospitals, but Texas contributes no money and instead forces the state hospitals to provide the state's contribution, then takes the federal contribution for the general fund. The hospitals are never compensated for the cost of caring for the uninsured and for shortfalls in Medicaid payments, according to officials at UTMB, UT Tyler and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Emphasis mine.

Of the $37.48 million in reimbursements credited to UTMB for fiscal 2012, the $21.82 million federal share went into the general fund, according to the Health and Human Services Commission.

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It is even worse today.

Padre Island National Seashore, too.

He was a great man.

My late father, knew him well enough that….

When my oldest sister went in a high school trip to WashDC,
Not sure the year,,, I’d say about 1967..

My sister got permission from high school, and was allowed to meet
with Senator Yarborough staff,

And she and a classmate were escorted around in private tour,
Rode with the Senator in that underground Capital ‘train’,
Even ate in the Senate dining room at a table with
multiple Senators …..Yarborough, Ted Kennedy, and I can’t remember the others now anymore

Think this was b/c Dad was ‘involved’ in NSA etc
And I’m sure Dad was well know to all the Senators on the Intelligence Committee …..thus I believe my sister got attention that way I guess

My oldest sister told me this….

On a family trip to DC in the mid 1960s,
Likely 1965,,,

a family station wagon odyssey, drove
to see WashDC, Gettysburg, Virginia, Williamsburg,

Well whole family, the big gang was in line to get tour of White House.
And THEN someone walked up to my father, talks to him for
a minute AND PRESTO …Dad tells us all let’s follow this person…

We are then taken all directly to the White House, walking past all the other
people in line, past the ‘gate’, even passing those just outside the White House entrance . Back then, When I was a kid then, never thought anything about it.

My oldest sister told me years later,,, we were somewhat ‘special’, and because of who Dad was, that once “they” realized who Dad was…we were escorted to the front of the lines.


In hindsight….
When a child you don’t pay that much attention to what is going on
Like you don’t pay attention to all the people who visited our house
from numerous countries, or pay attention to govt officials visiting at my parents
house, about the ONLY a time as a kid that gets our attention is when
some General from South Korea visits and is seated at our family dinner,
And all we kids can think of is the US soldier outside who drove the Korean
General.

To us kids,, The US soldier who is in a military uniform standing outside our house, he gets all our attention, the South Korean general is merely someone involved in business with Dad, wearing a business suit and tie, like all the businessmen.

It was nothing to us kids….someone Dad had over to our house..
Someone from Japan, from Jordon, from Thailand, from Germany,
India, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Turkey, etc….it was common….we just
didn’t pay that much attention at all.

Mom usually ‘fixed’ some gourmet meal for the ‘guests’,
We kids ‘knew’ when Dad’s own boss was there too, that the foreigner
business ‘person’ visiting our house MUST BE REALLY IMPORTANT

A lot of this never seemed much of anything UNTIL we kids were
lots older — then we realized very few people experienced what we did.

Back in election 1960,

LBJ and Ladybird were in Dallas
But, I might mixup some details it’s been so long
since I heard this from my father

Senator LBJ was alerted, or warned that there was a group of
protesters, Republicans, I think mainly GOP women on street
in downtown Dallas.

Ladybird and LBJ were at the hotel and had to walk to
the Democratic event across the street, (or maybe a block),
I can’t remember the hotels involved anymore.

And there were a group at a bar drinking already,

Well my late father was a Big Democrat, he was then VP
of a Fortune 500 company, Dad was there already at the hotel where
LBJ and Ladybird were heading to.

LBJ was told …‘it’s not a good idea to walk across the street to
the Democrats event because of the Republicans women protesting.
The Republicans women had protest signs such as ‘Let’s Fry Up a Ladybird’.

LBJ responded that…’Hell if a Texan can’t freely walk across the street with
his wife’, ‘we’re walking!!’

As they walked out, Of course LBJ and Ladybird were met with jeers and spitting by the Republicans, and a few men from the bar spilled out.

LBJ and Ladybird got to the downtown sidewalk just out the Dallas hotel,
And my father was there in the middle of it, protecting LBJ and Ladybird too. My father got between Ladybird and the then nasty Republican Congressman John Tower,

My dad was about 6ft tall, skinny as a rail, likely weighed only about 150 lbs.
And Republican Congressman John Tower was a short small man.

All I known is, they got into a small struggle, as my father was keeping the loud mouth Republican John Tower away from Ladybird.
And the result was John Tower ended down on the sidewalk just outside the
glass door entry to the hotel, with my father walking away still protecting Ladybird and LBJ.

My father said, he was glad there was no photos taken that he knew of,
since he was a VP of that company, AND The Dallas Times Herald did report
on that Republicans crowd of ugly women and the men who came out of the bar,


Bill Moyers spoke of this in the Eulogy he gave

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1340948

…… It is the fall of 1960. We're in Dallas, where neither Kennedy nor Johnson are local heroes. We start across the street from the Adolphus to the Baker Hotel. The reactionary congressman from Dallas has organized a demonstration of women — pretty women, in costumes of red, white, and blue, waving little American flags above their cowboy hats. At first I take them to be cheerleaders having a good time. But suddenly they are an angry mob, snarling, salivating, spitting.

They have always been slithering around in the shadows, now they run the state.

Your Dad was a true gentleman and Texan.

John Tower what a piece of caca!

Looks like Texans are trading in immunization and modern allopathic medicine for thoughts and prayers, and the laying on of hands. Those things are free. Ineffective, but free.

If I were them, I would be investing in burial clubs and cadaver donating programs.

I invite you to come down eat some barbecue; drink some Lone Star or Dr Pepper; dance some Western swing at Gruene Hall; float the Medina or Guadalupe; and meet some Texans. You just might be surprised.

Light and love

Rose

I've lived in the Northwest since 1979, though. I went back in 2007 for a visit, and the Texas I remembered was almost completely gone. The beauty of my hometown had been obscured by a zillion highway overpasses. The Baptist church I attended as a kid had morphed into an ultra-conservative, full-immersion Pentecostal boys club. I had always been proud of Texas as a place of scientific achievement, progress, and the home of some of the finest universities in the country. Now, it seems like every cowboy wanna-be is embracing a ridiculously outdated, empty-headed, rootin', tootin', six-gun shootin' Old West stereotype.

We've got pretty good barbecue up here in Washington, and Western dancing is, thank God, a niche enthusiasm confined to self-described redneck bars. We have a million varied, flavorful craft brews up here that beat the beer-flavored water that is Lone Star. I keep hearing that sooner or later, Texas is going to turn Blue. And yet nothing ever changes. Texas has embraced provincial insularity to the point where its energy grid is incompatible with the energy grids of its neighbors. And the less said about women's bodily autonomy and state law, the better.

In 1889, Texas was the second state to pass an anti-trust law.
Laws were passed that required private corporations to sell all land they held for speculative purposes within 15 years.
Gov Jim Hogg fought the railroads and Standard oil in the 1890s.
Texas elected a progressive reformer, Gov Thomas M. Campbell, in 1907.