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.
President Obama released what his administration is calling a compromise health care bill today, but many states are tired of waiting for Congress to address the nation’s broken health care system.
Some governors, frustrated by halted federal efforts to overhaul the U.S. health-care system, are introducing their own changes at the state level, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The Journal explains some of the changes states are making:
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, said his state already was working on its own 10-year health-care overhaul plan, which he said would help businesses struggling under the weight of the recession and of spiraling health-care costs. Utah’s House of Representatives this month approved a measure that would require the governor and Legislature to sign off on any changes in the health-care system mandated by federal legislation.
In Pennsylvania, officials are pushing to provide around-the-clock, non-emergency care for patients who might otherwise seek out emergency rooms to treat minor ailments occurring outside of doctors’ office hours.
Advocates in New Mexico have tried to push through changes too, but so far no major alterations to how health care is delivered have prevailed despite fierce debates.
On the federal level this week the release of the president’s plan marked the first time the administration has provided a detailed road map for what Obama wants a health overhaul to look like, reports the New York Times.
It comes three days before a health care summit in Washington when Democrats and Republicans come together for an all-day televised health care event at Blair House. The White House is hoping the session can jump start the stalled health bill, the paper notes.
The president’s plan, meanwhile, aspires to expand coverage to the uninsured while driving down health premiums and imposing what the White House calls “common sense rules of the road” for insurers, including ending the unpopular practice of discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions, the Times reports.
