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.
Insurance Division officials fired former compliance director Aaron Feliciano after he refused to hire an unqualified candidate as chief investigator and complained to the Attorney General’s office about “unlawful or improper” acts by Division officials, Feliciano alleges in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed last week in Santa Fe distric court.
Feliciano is suing the Public Regulation Commission (PRC), former insurance superintendent Morris “Mo” Chavez, and former PRC chief of staff Danny Mayfield, according to an online courts database.
Feliciano contacted the Attorney General’s office seeking assistance in his efforts to enforce the state insurance code, the lawsuit complaint states. The lawsuit was posted online by The New Mexico Watchdog, a website funded by local conservative, free-market think tank The Rio Grande Foundation. Feliciano claims the Insurance Division hired unqualified individuals to conduct insurance examinations, the website reported.
Feliciano was fired soon after he wrote to the AG’s office for help and informed Chavez that Feliciano could not hire a friend of Chavez’s as chief Division investigator because the individual was unqualified for that position, according to the website.
Feliciano alleges Insurance Division regulators were not enforcing the state insurance code.
The Insurance Division approved health insurance rate hikes for Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico every year since 2004, without documentation of the insurer’s claimed expenses and losses, an investigation by The Independent found.
Chavez resigned in the face of public outrage and the ire of PRC commissioners, following his approval of a weekend rate hike settlement for Blue Cross Blue Shield, earlier this year.
Feliciano was appointed to the newly established position of Chief Market Conduct Analyst in 2006 to oversee insurance fraud investigations.
