I forgot to point out earlier in the week that New Mexico has now surpassed Texas for highest percentage of workers without health insurance. We’ve surpassed Texas to top the list nationally, according to a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

New Mexico now has 28.1 percent of its population uninsured, while Texas stands at 28 percent In its report, The Associated Press quotes Human Services Department spokeswoman Betina Gonzales McCracken on the importance of the Medicaid program to New Mexico’s health care system:

There are currently 480,000 people enrolled in a Medicaid-funded program, with nearly 300,000 of them children, McCracken said, explaining that the state has focused in recent years on ensuring that children are covered.

Still, the state recognizes that workers — who are too old to receive Medicaid benefits and too young for Medicare programs — are a vulnerable population.

It’s interesting to compare this commentary with the opinion piece in the Albuquerque Journal today by Kim Posich, executive director of the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, about the bills that passed the Legislature almost unanimously, HB 544 and HB 130.

As it turns out, Posich states, Medicaid enrollment is declining precipitously in the state, despite it’s importance, because … drum roll … wait, we don’t actually know why because the Human Services Department refuses to release any performance data to the public, Posich explains:

As enrollment in Medicaid began plummeting in 2004, toward the biggest disruption to health care among low-income New Mexicans in history, community groups and the Legislature began seeking performance data to evaluate the administration of the program. The department responded by significantly limiting information. The information it did provide was often unclear, inadequate and of little use for the purposes of oversight. The department claimed it was the best it could do. …

In August 2007, Gov. Richardson ordered the Human Services Department to address Medicaid enrollment, and within months enrollment began to climb. But still, the department refused to provide basic performance data. This past summer, the Legislative Finance Committee took the unusual step of appealing to the attorney general for help. Yet, incredibly, even though the attorney general wrote that the Finance Committee was entitled to the information to audit the state budget, the department still refused to provide it, claiming it was “confidential.”

Recently, Medicaid enrollment began falling again — by a shocking 4,448 people. This is the first time since May 2007 that a significant decrease in enrollment occurred.

The two bills passed by the Legislature, Posich explained, “would make it law for the department to report basic performance data about the Medicaid program. The Human Services Department vigorously opposed them both.”

Posich ends her commentary by urging New Mexicans to contact the governor in support of the bills.