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The state of Texas is turning down billions of federal dollars that would have paid for health care coverage for 1.5 million poor Texans.

By refusing to participate in Medicaid expansion, which is part of the Affordable Care Act, the state will leave on the table an estimated $100 billion over the next decade.

Texas' share of the cost would have been just 7 percent of the total, but for Gov. Rick Perry and the state's Republican-dominated Legislature, even $1 in the name of "Obamacare" was a dollar too much.

"Texas will not be held hostage by the Obama administration's attempt to force us into this fool's errand of adding more than a million Texans to a broken system," Perry said.

Texas Republicans have moved steadily to the right — to where the very concept of public health insurance of any kind is looked at through narrowed eyes. Still, it's not easy to walk away from $100 billion from the federal government to help your state's poor, elderly and disabled, especially when you have powerful stakeholders like hospitals, doctors and cities clamoring for the state to take the money for their sakes.

Texas hospitals stand to lose about $7 billion.

"I don't think we will be OK, actually, especially when you consider the state cut us about $700 million a year in Medicaid payments because of the budget shortfall," says John Hawkins, a senior vice president at the Texas Hospital Association. "Now we're dealing with sequestration, which is another 2 percent.

Shots - Health News

Texas Medicaid Debate Complicated By Politics And Poverty

A day after school officials approved shutting down 50 schools, the Chicago Teachers Union and community activists say they'll hold a voter registration and education campaign. The union is agitated that Mayor Rahm Emanuel, school board members and some lawmakers failed to listen to parents, teachers and others who called for the schools to remain open.

Before they voted yes on the sweeping school closure plan, school board members faced a torrent of criticism Wednesday. Protesters tried to conduct a sit-in at the front of the boardroom, but security officers escorted them out.

Sonya Williams, a parent who had come to testify in defense of her school, said she understood the passion and the outbursts.

"It's just like going to a long funeral and no one will close the casket yet," she said. "The fate of your position, the fate of your job, the fate of your children are up in the air, and they're based on a few people making a decision."

This was the last time before the vote that people could make their pitch to keep schools open. Chicago Alderman Bob Fioretti was among them.

"Substantial research shows that closing schools and moving students increases the dropout rate and the incidence of street violence," he said.

Chicago's 'School Utilization Crisis'

The arguments did not deter Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett, who, along with Mayor Emanuel, has argued that Chicago has to "right-size" its school district. They have said demographic shifts in mostly black neighborhoods left schools underutilized — plus, the district faces a budget deficit of a billion dollars.

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Then Shira's mother, terrified of losing the sister's newborn baby when the widower, Yochay (Yiftach Klein), considers marrying a widow in Belgium, sets about engineering a match between between Shira and Yochay. Desolate enough at having her own hopes dashed, Shira is downright paralyzed by the ethical and emotional implications of marrying her beloved sister's husband, whom she has loved as a brother.

Other complications intrude to stack the deck against an orderly transition to a settled life; none of them, though, involves a direct challenge to a social order that many secular people argue consigns women to secondary roles as helpmeets.

And it's true that the stakes are low here. Shira's dilemma may be agonizing for her, but it involves no violation of Jewish law, threatens no status quo. The community's kindly rabbi implores her to consult her own feelings. One wonders how he would respond to a request to take a year off to travel by herself, or to train as a rabbi.

In light of the recent violent protests among ultra-Orthodox men (and women) against women who claimed the right to pray as men do at Jerusalem's Western Wall, some would call Kill the Void a roaring case of special pleading. And perhaps Burshtein does take a willfully rosy view of women's standing within the Haredi community. But if she may be willfully blind to politics, she excels at setting before us, in passionately intimate detail, a world to which she is devoted — and one in which women are placed front and center.

Ambience is everything in this director's gorgeous scene-setting. There's nothing remotely monkish or drab about the lavish physicality and rich lighting that infuses a sexually modest subculture with sensual pleasure and — yes — romance. In one achingly lovely scene, Shira squeezes out her grief in the plaintive notes of an accordion as Yochay sways in a hammock, his baby slumbering peacefully on his chest.

Elsewhere a richly soulful Hebrew rendition of Psalm 137 ("If I forget thee, O Jerusalem ...") underscores the transformative power of communal ritual, whose central premise — act, and the feelings will follow — guides Shira toward a decision.

There's nothing pat about this: In the final shot of the movie, on her wedding night, a young woman stands with her back against a wall. What is that look on her face? Is it doubt about the choice she's made? Fright? Or awe before the mystery of her own, and all, existence?

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

American author Lydia Davis was awarded the Man Booker International Prize, worth about $90,000, at a ceremony Wednesday in London. Davis is renowned for her works of (very) short fiction. One story, "Samuel Johnson Is Indignant," reads in its entirety: "that Scotland has so few trees." Another, called "Certain Knowledge from Herodotus" says, "These are the facts about the fish in the Nile:" Sir Christopher Ricks, chairman of the judges, is quoted in the official announcement: "Should we simply concur with the official title and dub them stories? Or perhaps miniatures? Anecdotes? Essays? Jokes? Parables? Fables? Texts? Aphorisms, or even apophthegms? Prayers, or perhaps wisdom literature? Or might we settle for observations?" (In any case, Samuel Johnson was indignant about the lack of trees in Scotland, and Herodotus had some odd conceptions about the breeding habits of Nile fish.) Other finalists included American writer Marilynne Robinson, who was considered the frontrunner (her novel Gilead won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005), and the French novelist Marie NDiaye, whose Three Strong Women made a splash in 2012.

Keith Richards, the wraith-like Rolling Stones guitarist, told The Sun tabloid that he owes 50 years' worth of library fines. The Sun said "experts" (economists? librarians? other irresponsible library patrons?) estimate that means about $30,000 in fines.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts will write a book about "fighting for the middle class," according to a press release sent out by her publisher, Henry Holt. Although parts will be autobiographical, it adds, "the main focus of the book ... will be the conflict America now faces between giant institutions and the needs of everyday citizens." The Democratic lawmaker's book, not yet titled, will be published in 2014.

It's rumored that Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin also is coming out with a book. A report in the National Review cites "a source close to Ryan" who stressed that the book won't be a "tell-all" about the failed Romney-Ryan presidential campaign, but a combination of policy and autobiography.

Amazon announced Wednesday that it will let writers of fan fiction sell their work through its site, though authors will share profits with the original copyright holder and with Amazon. Long a staple of Internet subculture, fan fiction has slowly begun to receive more serious academic consideration. (Check out Katherine Arcement's great essay about it for the London Review of Books.) But until now, it was illegal to sell fiction based on copyrighted works — books such as Fifty Shades of Grey, which began as Twilight fan fiction, needed to be substantially altered before they could be sold for profit.