I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
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.
The only bill the Senate seems to agree on so far is Sen.Tim Keller’s Medicaid protection bill, SB 4, which passed late Tuesday.
Essentially, the bill prevents funding cuts to Medicaid or the state’s development disabilities waiver program, by restricting $670.1 million of the general fund dedicated to those programs from cuts as legislators craft a solution to the fiscal year 2009 and 2010 budgets deficits.
Passed by the Senate “committee of the whole” yesterday on a voice vote after about two hours of debate on the floor, it must pass one more formal vote in the Senate to go before moving to the House.
Keller told the Independent that the bill has widespread support because it protects “the poorest of the poor” in New Mexico and is fiscally responsible.
“Medicaid is matched four to one by the federal government,” Keller said. “Even if you’re totally against everything but cutting, you’d have to be completely illogical to turn down four [federal] dollars for every one dollar.”
“It’s an investment for the state,” he continued. “If only we could put everything into Medicaid.”
Keller said the bill needed to be passed on its own, rather than included in a larger budget bill because Medicaid funding is buried in a lot of different departments. If the Senate passes an across the board percentage cut to state agency’s and gave department heads the leeway to identify the cuts, Medicaid might be cut even if the department heads were instructed to protect it, he said. A stand-alone bill ensures the program will be protected.
According to the fiscal impact report on the bill, there are currently 516,560 Medicaid enrollees. That’s around 25 percent of the state’s population, pointing to the degree to which New Mexico struggles with poverty.
There are 3,878 individuals who receive a developmental disabilities Medicaid waiver, which allows developmentally disabled New Mexicans, mostly adults, to receive care at home, rather than in an institution.
This debate is happening concurrent with the federal debate over health insurance reform. If a federal reform bill is passed in the coming months, the state’s Medicaid program will most likely be expanded significantly.
