This week, our In Focus section reviews Texas’ 1115 Medicaid waiver renewal. After more than a year of negotiations, on December 21st the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) received CMS approval to extend the state’s 1115 waiver. The Texas Healthcare Transformation and Quality Improvement Program waiver was initially approved by CMS as a five-year demonstration waiver that began December 2011 and ended September 2016 and included $29 billion in funding. The waiver authorized the expansion of Medicaid managed care while preserving federal hospital funding historically received as supplemental payments. The waiver created two new funding pools: the Uncompensated Care (UC) payment pool and the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) pool.