Health Care Issues

Medical City is Dallas' Most Expensive Hospital

It's always been nearly impossible to compare prices between hospitals. For one, most people who find themselves in an emergency room don't have the leisure to shop around. Even if they do, where are they going to turn? Healthcare providers don't typically put their prices on billboards. The opacity ... More >>

Dallas Interfaith Group to State Lawmakers: Expand Medicaid Now

Dallas Area Interfaith held a news conference this morning at Temple Emanu-El, where more than a dozen faith leaders from the Dallas area gathered to support Medicaid expansion. Since Friday, 60 clergy members from Catholic, Protestant and Jewish congregations have signed a letter calling on state l ... More >>

Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios will be Non-Smoking Starting May 7

For quite some time Dallas has maintained no-smoking laws in its bars, restaurants and music venues, forcing smokers into the elements during concerts or comedy shows; but just 40 miles away, Denton has long remained the go-to city for tabacco users because of its lenience towards smoking in bars an ... More >>

How Medicare Became a Thieves' Bazaar

In Dallas and across the country, hospitals, doctors and dealers have made Medicare the nation’s sweetest crime. The feds are now trying to shutter the door.

The American Lung Association Gives Texas an 'F', Calls it the "Tobacco Industry's Playground"

Smoking rates in the U.S. are plummeting. According to the CDC, there were three million fewer smokers in 2010 than in 2005. The factors contributing to this decline are are fairly obvious: improved educational efforts; cessation programs; higher cigarette taxes; tighter state and local anti-smoking ... More >>

Judge Denies Planned Parenthood's Request to Let Them Back in Texas Women's Health Program

Let's do this quickly, so you can incorporate it into all the sorrows you're about drown after you leave work today. A state judge has denied Planned Parenthood's request for a temporary injunction that would have allowed them to rejoin the Texas Women's Health Program. According to Mary Tuma, a r ... More >>

Day After Obama Talks Up Medicare Fraud Fight in Debate, Feds Say They've Taken Down $100 Million of Local Schemes

One of the things Obama took pains to highlight during last night's debate was just how aggressively his administration has gone after Medicare fraudsters. Remember Jacques Roy, the Rockwall physician accused of masterminding a scheme to bilk the government of $375 million? Probably not, since the d ... More >>

More Than 300,000 People in Dallas County Would Get Health Insurance Under Obamacare, But Not In Rick Perry's Texas

Some six million Texans are one health emergency away from financial ruin, and the state of affairs in Dallas County isn't any better. Nearly 30 percent of its residents are uninsured. That's 672,681 of our neighbors whom the health insurance markets have excluded, according to the latest U.S. Cen ... More >>

Doctor Sued For Requiring Receptionist's Abortion Also Caused Patient to Lose Limbs, Court Finds

Dr. Meenakshi Prabhakar, an infectious disease specialist, probably wishes August would hurry up and end already. Earlier this month, we wrote about Prabhakar's receptionist, who sued the doctor for allegedly forcing her to get an abortion. Why? Tough to say. But someone from Prabhakar's office told ... More >>

Texas Plans to Use Medicaid Expansion it Rejected to Pay For Women's Health Program

In early June, Governor Rick Perry was quick to announce that no state of his would be taking any of that tyrannical federal money to expand Medicaid coverage. Yet court documents filed by outgoing Health and Human Services Commissioner Tom Suehs claim that the state's new, Planned Parenthood-free W ... More >>

Perry Says NO-bamacare for Texas

This morning, in a move about as surprising as the sun rising, Governor Rick Perry came out with guns blazing against the Affordable Health Care Act, recently approved (mostly) by the U.S. Supreme Court. The act's expanded Medicaid coverage for the poor will not be implemented in Perry's state, de ... More >>

Dallas Doctor Tops State in Taxpayer-Funded Weight-Loss Surgeries

Over the weekend, the Texas Tribune published one of those eye-opening, number-crunching reports the website has made its niche. This one is about weight-loss surgery, specifically weight-loss surgery that is paid for by taxpayers. This is a relatively new phenomenon, the Tribune notes. Medicare on ... More >>

Texas Has More Uninsured Veterans Than Any Other State. So That's Lovely.

The difficulties faced by military veterans returning home, from elevated divorce and suicide rates to a harsh job market, have been well documented. Turns out, many of them also don't have health coverage. According to a study released last week by the Urban Institute, 10 percent of veterans lac ... More >>

From Texas or Russia, Medicare Scamsters Are All the Same -- Greedy

Here we are, with the biggest Medicare fraud in history going -- so we are told -- and The New York Times devotes its front page today to a story about Medicare fraud carried out by organized Russian gangs in ... oh, guess where! ... New York City! What can we do down here in Dallas to get respect? ... More >>

Medicaid Women's Health Program Is One Step Closer To Death

The Medicaid Women's Health Program provides some 130,000 Texas women with vital medical care: family planning, birth control, cancer screenings and annual exams. And for that, of course, it must die. That, at least, has long been the case as far as Republican lawmakers are concerned. And after last ... More >>

Dan's Goes Smoke-Free

Obama's War on Weed

In a strange about-face, the President tries to hack medical marijuana off at the knees

Dan's Silverleaf to Officially Become Denton's First Non-Smoking Venue Later This Month

​For a few years now, venerable Denton venue Dan's Silverleaf has adopted a policy of not allowing cigarette smoking inside its venues during shows. Later this month, the venue plans on making its no-smoking policy a permanent fixture of the room.According to a press release announcing the change, ... More >>

Doc's Whistleblowing Results in Parkland, UT Southwestern Paying $1.4 Million to Feds

Gentilello in a 2005 UT Southwestern photo​Amidst all the other things going on with Parkland at the moment, there remains one other Very Big Thing you've probably forgotten all about: Dr. Larry Gentilello's allegations that trauma residents at the county hospital were treating patients and perfo ... More >>

Smoking Declines and Food Fandom Grows. Coincidence?

Cigs: They blunt your sense of taste and stunt your growth.​Smoke-Free Texas, a coalition agitating for a state law prohibiting smoking in restaurants and bars, this month released a study showing people would eat out more often if they didn't have to contend with secondhand smoke. No offense ... More >>

Golden Acres Heads to Federal Court to Take on Kathleen Sebelius and Medicare's "Hospice Cap"

Kathleen Sebelius​The National Alliance for Hospice Access lays out very clearly what the so-called "hospice cap" is, but long story short: In 1982, Congress enacted a law that allowed Medicare beneficiaries to choose hospice care over hospital care. There was one caveat: Congress put in place a c ... More >>

Dwaine Caraway Will Guilt Into Quitting the Smokes. Or SMU Will Pay You. Your Choice.

Andrea GrimesMayor Pro-Tem Dwaine Caraway improvises at today's Quit Smoking Dallas! press conference by inviting a smoking colleague to be mortified without notice.​Joking happily about how he's already told you to pull up your pants and quit the K2, Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway hosted a press co ... More >>

Caraway: "Quit Smoking Dallas"

Health and Human Services/FDA​Speaking of the mayor pro tem ...City Hall just sent word that tomorrow at City Hall, Dwaine Caraway will be joined by SMU associate psychology prof Jasper Smits, clinical psychologist Jay Ashmore of the Cooper Aerobics Center and others to launch a citywide anti-smok ... More >>

Dallas-Born Encycloweedia—Exactly What It Sounds Like—Is Trying a New Way to Turn Pot into Dough

With Shifting Attitudes and a Burgeoning Medical Marijuana Movement, the Future Looks Rosy for Legalized Weed

Pot for Pain? Not in Dallas County, No Sir.

​Will the feds' new stance on medicinal marijuana have any impact on local users, even though, sadly, Texas isn't among the states that permit the practice? Craig Watkins's office says no way, no how. Local Libertarians, not surprisingly, are crossing their fingers. (As opposed to ...) "The federa ... More >>

Outside a Quiet Two-Party Town Hall, Health Care Demonstrators Take To the Streets

Patrick MichelsDemonstrators on both sides of the debate shared space outside this morning's town hall meeting with Rep. Pete Sessions and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson.​Update: Check out our slide show for more photos from the meeting and the protest.Walking up to the health care reform protest outs ... More >>

Smoking Bans: "An Affront to Freedom ... An Assault on Small Business"

Friend of Unfair Park "Peterk" forwards along this item from this morning's National Review Online, which excerpts a Friday story from the Financial Times concerning the "law of unintended consequences" created by smoking bans -- like, ya know, the one the Dallas City Council passed two weeks before ... More >>

Why the New Smoking Ordinance Should Have Been Delayed, and Sorting Through the 10 Amendments

There's a line where government stops and the rights of the people begin, and when Mayor Tom Leppert and nine of his council colleagues voted to strengthen Dallas' smoking ordinance, that line wasn't blurred, they drove right past it as if it didn't even exist. But no matter where you stand on the ... More >>

Before Council Votes to Ban Smoking, a Lot of Smoke is Blown at City Hall

After nearly three hours of discussion, the city council wrapped up yesterday's briefing on the proposed strengthened smoking ordinance seemingly prepared to vote on the item at next week's agenda meeting. Council members appear poised to approve a ban on smoking in bars, pool halls and within 15 fe ... More >>

Blowing Smoke|Red-Faced Profession|From the Inside Too

Is Expanding the Dallas Smoking Ordinance a Commie Plot?

City Council debate over expanding the smoking ban gets heated

Council Committee Moves Toward Smoking Smackdown. Could Be Worse.

Wanna Smoke in Dallas? Don’t Plan on Leaving the House.

Say 'Screw It' to Smoke Breaks with Snus

The Forbes 35 (Drunkest)

Wheeler Dealers

Feds allege scam artists bilked Medicare for millions

Vice Grip

In Dallas restaurants, 2003 was all about smoke. The future may be all about hooch.

No Smoking Gun

The new smoking ban will work--if no one lights up

Puff Puff Poof

Smoking ban passed in the name of public health--right?

Where There's Smoke

Dallas considers strengthening the smoking ordinance...again

Joint Effort

"Aging hippies" team with the desperately ill and one lawmaker to fight for medical marijuana in Texas. Is that just a smoke screen?

Cloudy Issue

Bill proposes to ban smoking in Texas restaurants

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

And your hair, your clothes, and your skin as the Big Smoke blows through Dallas

Smoke gets in his eyes

A Dallas deputy sheriff is transferred because of his allergies

Slicing the pie

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison switches to the side of the angels in Texas' tobacco battle

Hash Over

Hash Over

Rich man's Robin Hood

GOP budget is greatest-ever transfer of wealth from the Have-Nots to the Haves

Couldn't Medicare less

Shady goings-on in the fight over health care