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.
Attorney General Gary King supports a change to state law to give the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) more power over health care rate increases, a spokesman said Wednesday.
King’s support comes two days after it was announced that his office had helped negotiate a settlement that allows Blue Cross Blue Shield New Mexico to raise premiums by an average of 21.3 percent on 40,000 New Mexicans. The agreed-to settlement represented a reduction from a 24.6 percent rate increase the state’s Insurance Division had approved earlier this year.
“We would support some change in the process that would allow the PRC to have a bigger role,” King spokesman Phil Sisneros said. “We think it couldn’t but help the process if the PRC could treat health care increases the same way as utility rate increase requests.”
Under current law, the New Mexico’s state insurance superintendent and the insurance division have sole authority to rule on health insurance rate increases. That makes it an anomaly among divisions within the PRC, which hears and decides rate-hike requests in the telecommunications, energy and utility industries.
“When it comes to everything but insurance, we are the decision makers,” said PRC Commissioner Jason Marks. “I do favor making the PRC the appellate body” in health care rate hike requests.
Currently health insurance rates appeals go to state district courts.
A sensible reform?
“I think it ‘s a sensible reform to make all appeals of the insurance superintendent come to the PRC,” Marks said. “We can apply our regulatory judgment. It can be quicker and less expensive.”
PRC members had supported such a change but it’s never passed the Legislature, Marks said.
At least one state lawmaker on Wednesday said she’d be open to giving the PRC more authority.
“That might be a good idea,” state Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, said.
Feldman chairs a legislative committee that helps to oversee health care.
Whatever reform proposal wins the day, Feldman said, she wants to see it produce more openness and transparency in how the state scrutinizes requests for rate hikes from health insurers. She already is studying other states to see how they treat such issues.
“We’re looking at several different models, including Pennsylvania and Oregon, and more ability for the insurance superintendent or the PRC to turn down rate requests on the basis of discriminatory rates, incomplete information,” Feldman said.
Also of concern, she said, was ensuring that the state is doing an independent review of a health care company’s reserve levels and not just “rubber stamping these applications.”
“We want something more than a rubber stamp,” Feldman said. “We need something more than a rubber stamp.”
New Mexico Insurance Superintendent Morris Chavez was out of the office Wednesday and could not be reached for comment.
Anger over Blue Cross Blue Shield decision
The suggested reforms are an illustration of how divisive Monday’s decision was.
The settlement with Blue Cross Blue Shield surprised some, including Marks and Feldman, who had expected a public hearing Monday on the health insurer’s request to raise rates. Instead the settlement with the health insurer was announced, angering some of the 50 or so people who had packed a PRC hearing room.
Marks criticized it as a “back room deal,” an allegation that upset Chavez who said the settlement was negotiated in good faith.
The settlement was negotiated over the weekend by the Insurance Division, state Attorney General’s office and Blue Cross Blue Shield New Mexico, a Division of Health Care Service Corporation.
The Attorney General’s office does not usually get involved in such negotiations, Sisneros said, but was asked to get involved by Marks.
The Attorney General did not want an expanded role in future health insurer’s rate hike requests, Sisneros said.
“I think we see ourselves as an advisory,” Sisneros said.
