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Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
As the Legislature finishes the business of its 60-day session this last frenzied week, one topic many expected to be at the top of the agenda, as it has in years past, has been keeping a very low profile.
Health-care reform was such a hot topic in 2008 that the governor called a special session for it. But during the 2009 session — just a scant six months after the 2008 special session — it’s been akin to a phantom issue at the Legislature.
It’s there, but you can’t quite see it.
The sense of urgency at the Roundhouse for the topic has seemed almost nil. Nor is it getting much mention by the punditry or the press, even though two significant health-care reform bills each have just one committee and a floor debate standing in the way of the governor’s desk.
The general sense that health care reform is considered near death in 2009 was most vividly confirmed when the two political reporters covering state politics for the largest metropolitan daily in the state — The Albuquerque Journal — didn’t include health care in their report previewing the issues to watch in the final week of the session.
“The New Mexico Legislature’s 60-day law-making session will come to a rushed and frantic close at the stroke of noon on Saturday and many big issues remain undecided as the clock starts ticking for the final week,” The Albuquerque Journal explained, but the ensuing list of issues “still to be hashed” made no mention of health care.
The general wisdom of the chattering class at the Roundhouse — also known variously as “wall-leaners,” lobbyists, advocates and reporters — is that health care reform is going nowhere. When pressed on the topic, the consensus seems to be that progress on health care reform is suffering in 2009 due to lack of political capital on the part of Gov. Bill Richardson and lack of political will on the part of the Legislature.
In conjunction with these dynamics, a gaping hole in the state’s budget has many reluctant to take on big initiatives, as many perceive health care reform to be. The mantra that “there is no money” gets in the way of the message coming from advocates that several reform bills are actually measured in scope and require relatively little financial commitment from the state.
Richardson’s political capital
The thinking goes that Gov. Richardson has been so damaged by the ongoing federal pay-to-play investigation (dubbed “GRIPgate” by NMI) that he holds minimal sway this year with the Legislature.
Richardson has made health care reform a central issue in his own agenda since he first ran for governor in 2002, saying at the time that he was “looking at a plan … with health care to cover every New Mexican.”
That hasn’t happened, but Richardson’s advocacy has ensured that the health-care reform debate that’s raged for well over a decade, spawning vigorous advocacy for myriad health-care reform plans at the Legislature, has had a prominent spot at the legislative table.
The drive reached such a pitch during Richardson’s foray into presidential politics last year that he instigated the special session in 2008, vowing to implement his health-care reform agenda.
But reform didn’t happen during that special session, and Richardson’s eventual invitation to join President Obama’s cabinet was derailed by the federal pay-to-play investigation into his administration.
Since then, Richardson’s popularity ratings have fallen to an all-time low, and he’s kept an even lower profile — which has been especially striking as this year’s session has droned on. Long a champion of the issue, he isn’t expending his diminished political capital on health care reform.
Lack of political will at the Legislature
On the other side of the equation, without the big guy on the fourth floor pushing health care reform it seems that those who control the Legislature are happy to ignore it.
Throwing stones at the governor, or criticizing the approach of advocates, does little to change the fact that the Legislature itself is unwilling to get it together on the topic of health care.
Platitudes abound in the halls of our Roundhouse about health care, a prominent one being “a person has to be an advocate for their own health care.”
The 400,000 New Mexicans without health care coverage most likely agree and would love to advocate for themselves if only they could see a doctor.
There may be many legislators who agree that New Mexico’s health care system is in a crisis — leaving about a quarter of the state with little to no access to care, and many more struggling to pay high health care bills. But as a body, they lack the political will necessary to arrive at real solutions that transcend inadequate stopgap measures.
Blaming the budget
To deflect the issue, many fall back on budget woes to explain why health care reform is dead in the water.
But significant health care reform bills requiring minimal funds to begin long-term planning work have sailed through the House and await just one committee hearing in the Senate to green-light them for a floor vote.
One would create a health care “authority” that would be an independent body charged with developing a plan for addressing both the lack of insurance coverage as well as the lack of health care providers in the state. The bill, HB 267, passed unanimously out of three House committees and was then voted off the floor with just two dissenting votes.
Another bill was introduced about halfway through the session to round out Gov. Bill Richardson’s scaled-back health care agenda. HB 799 would create a “partnership” between the executive and legislative branches to develop affordable benefit packages that could then be offered to the public by private insurers or through the use of public dollars should the Legislature choose to do so. It made its way through two House committees quickly and was passed to the Senate by the House floor March 11.
Both have languished since, waiting for a hearing by the Senate Finance Committee. Neither has a big price tag — each only ask for a one-time appropriation of $500,000 to begin planning work. But since the budget’s been passed, it’s unlikely we’ll see those appropriations this year.
Nonetheless, despite the deafening silence on the topic, it’s conceivable that one of these bills could make it out of the committee bottleneck and through the floor to the governor’s desk.
That may be wishful thinking, but many, likely including those uninsured New Mexicans, wouldn’t mind seeing New Mexico’s chattering class eating a little crow on this one.
