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.
PRC Chairman David King’s executive assistant, Craig Dunbar, was named the state’s new interim insurance superintendent Thursday afternoon. Among Dunbar’s first tasks will be taking over the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico rate hike fight as its new hearing officer, King told The Independent.
Interim state Insurance Superintendent Thomas Rushton will retire effective June 22, Public Regulation Commission (PRC) Chairman David King confirmed Monday evening.
Rushton was appointed Interim Insurance Superintendent May 4, immediately upon the resignation of former superintendent Morris…
New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) commissioners Thursday morning unanimously directed Interim Insurance Superintendent Thomas Rushton to rescind the Insurance Division’s controversial approval of a 21.3 percent hike in the health insurance rates for individual policyholders of Blue Cross Blue Shield N.M.
Rushton announced that he had recused himself from further involvement in the case.
That, at least, came as welcome news to the Attorney General’s office, according to Spokesman Phillip Sisneros.
“We do support Mr. Rushton’s recusal from a hearing on the matter,” Sisneros said. “(But) our position is still in support of the settlement. Remember, our agency is not the policy making authority on this issue and in fact, we were asked to step in to help find a resolution. We are happy to continue in that advisory role in the future.”
Rushton appeared reluctant to rescind the Insurance Division’s April approval of the rate hike, telling commissioners that rate change review procedures had been followed.
“There was a hearing conducted,” Rushton said. “There was prefiled testimony. There was discovery. There was a settlement reached, and Morris Chavez accepted that stipulated settlement.”
PRC Chairman David King interrupted Rushton to say that there were outside interests that had not been heard in the rate hike settlement process.
“We’ve had death threats to the Commission, to staff, and the former superintendent (Chavez),” King said. “They certainly followed the law, but it wasn’t done as well as in California,” where a Blue Cross rate hike was recently overturned.
Rushton assigned Deputy Insurance Superintendent Darlene Gomez to be the hearing officer for the reconsideration of the settlement approval. Gomez will receive whatever staffing assistance she needs from the Commission, King pledged.
But the Insurance Division will work under close Commission scrutiny, King said. King said the Commission will also ask for a third-party independent audit of Blue Cross Blue Shield NM’s financial records.
Commissioners King, Jason Marks, and Jerome Block, Jr. have all said they want the PRC to investigate why Blue Cross Blue Shield has a virtual monopoly in much of rural New Mexico.
Marks and Block appeared to try to manage policyholders’ expectations, Thursday.
“I don’t want false hope here,” Marks said. “It’s only right to do what we can. But we don’t want false hope. There’s still a stipulated settlement.”
Block said Blue Cross Blue Shield was starting “from scratch,” as far as he was concerned.
But he cautioned that the company would not take the Commission’s decision lightly, and warned policyholders that the extra scrutiny could backfire on consumers.
“They’re going to come out swinging,” Block said. “There could be (financial) data that justifies a higher increase. I hope the public is ready to face that outcome if it’s substantially different.”
Switching interim superintendents?
Marks also floated the possibility of replacing Rushton as interim superintendent with former insurance superintendent Don Letherer, noting that Rushton is very busy.
“Don could keep the wheels on,” Marks said. “We’d have twice the assurance the job’s getting done.”
Commissioners agreed to add a meeting with Letherer to next week’s Commission agenda.
Interim state Insurance Superintendent Tom Rushton may rescind his predecessor’s April 26 approval of a Blue Cross Blue Shield New Mexico health insurance rate hike — the result of a weekend settlement Rushton helped negotiate to the outrage of policyholders and Public Regulation Commission (PRC) commissioners. Commissioners want Rushton to stand aside while the rate increase is re-examined, and Commission chairman David King is calling for a third-party audit of the insurer’s books.
PNM officials and gas workers were grilled Monday by Public Regulation Commission (PRC) commissioner Jason Marks and an attorney for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, over a potentially explosive 2008 gas leak at the intersection of Albuquerque’s Montgomery and Carlisle blvds. The leak may not have been the busy intersection’s first, and pipeline maintenance and corrosion monitoring lapses were widespread in Albuquerque, commissioners learned.
Criminal charges against one Public Regulation Commission (PRC) commissioner, the conviction earlier this month of another on two felony charges, a costly sexual harassment lawsuit, the hiring of a convicted embezzler, and repeated violations of the Open Meetings Act…
New Mexico’s Open Meetings Act is meant to help ensure public involvement and to prevent backroom deals in state and local government, but violations of the law are widespread, an investigation by The Independent has found. School boards, universities, town councils, county and state commissions, and boards across the state have broken the law, casting a shroud of secrecy over government officials’ deliberations and bargaining.
After being convicted of felony counts of battery and burglary, Carol Sloan reportedly will try to remain as a commissioner on the Public Regulations Commission.
The State Engineer’s office has authorized New Mexico’s American Water company to combine water rights from 59 of its wells to better meet demand in Clovis.
The move was needed not because of increasing demand, company officials said,…
Attorney General Gary King has referred to the 1st Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Santa Fe a case involving his cousin, “to avoid any potential conflicts,” the Albuquerque Journal is reporting.
The case involves a request from the
New Mexico Land Commissioner Pat Lyons announced today that he’ll run for a seat on the Public Regulation Commission next year, when term limits oust him from his current job.
As one of the most powerful…
