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.
A new study shows that a community that has a high rate of uninsured members affects the health care access and quality of those who actually have insurance.
Governor-elect Susana Martinez is expected join 14 other newly elected Republican governors for a meeting with incoming Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio. The main topic of discussion: Repealing health care reform
Between Aug. 1 and Nov. 1, a high-risk pool set up under the nation’s new federal health care law for hard-to-insure individuals has added 133 New Mexicans to its rolls, state officials said Monday.
That’s a better rate than neighboring states like Texas and Arizona, a government fact sheet shows.
The numbers of residents enrolled in the newly created federal high-risk pool in New Mexico comes at a time when some are questioning how well the programs are working across the nation as a stopgap measure to help hard-to-insure individuals. More …
Starting today health insurers can’t deny coverage to New Mexico children under the age of 19 with preexisting conditions. And adult children can stay on their parents’ insurance policies until age 26. Those changes are two of several provisions of the…
Americans’ confidence in their ability to pay for and access health care has fallen by 5 percent since December 2009, according to a Thomson Reuters poll of consumer confidence released Monday.
The monthly survey questions 3,000 consumers about their…
Regulators from across the country, including New Mexico’s Insurance Superintendent Johnny Montoya, voted overwhelmingly this week to limit the amount of premiums health insurance companies can spend on administrative costs.
Under the new federal health care law health insurers…
Since December 2008 A.V. Ley has experienced two double-digit increases to the monthly health care premiums he pays Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico, he says. So when the retired engineer learned Monday that New Mexico had won a $1 million federal grant to strengthen how New Mexico vets health insurers’ rate-hike requests, he cheered. New Mexico was one of 45 states to win $1 million Monday to help beef up how it reviews rate-hike requests by health insurers. U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on a conference call with reporters Monday characterized the money as a way to “restore some basic fairness” for consumers who find themselves battling a perennial rise in the cost of health care.
USA Today recently profiled some innovative approaches other states are using to meet the challenges of delivering healthcare. Some of them could help New Mexico plan for the more than 150,000 previously uninsured New Mexicans who will qualify for health coverage under the new federal health care law.
Some of those innovative approaches include using more nurse practitioners, communicating with patients over the phone or via e-mail, and using shared medical appointments.
New Mexico might have too few physicians, physician’s assistants, registered nurses and other medical professionals to respond to the influx of new patients, state officials said earlier this year. And many medical professionals are concentrated in three areas — metro Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe, and not even spread around the state. More …
Gov. Bill Richardson is creating an Office of Health Care Reform that would coordinate the state’s efforts to prepare for 2014, when the new federal health care reform law goes into effect. The agency wouldn’t have its own designated staff, but…
Republicans realize their efforts to overturn the nation’s health care law are a long shot. So GOP candidates this year are resorting to a new message they hope resonates with voters: Help us retake Congress so we can choke…
Women, who have more contact with the health care system, stand to benefit the most from changes brought about the new health care law, according to a study released this week.
The analysis, performed by the Commonwealth Fund,…
New Mexico Democratic Rep. Ben Ray Lujan has co-signed a House Bill that would add a public option to the recently passed health care reform bill.
As The Washington Independent reported today, House Democrats have returned to a…
Public support for federal health care reform, passed this year by Congress, has remained stable and opposition has dipped slightly over the past month.
That’s according to a tracking poll released this week by the Kaiser Family Foundation,…
New Mexico should use the creation of its own health insurance exchange to help drive reform and protect consumers, Gov. Richardson’s working group on health care reform recommended this week. State-based exchanges, part of federal healthcare reform, are intended to function as a clearinghouse for consumers looking to buy health insurance.
As of Monday only three New Mexicans had enrolled in a federal high-risk insurance pool that launched July 1, but more are expected, state officials said this week.
The federal high-risk pool is the first high-profile program to launch from the recently passed federal health care law.
The slow start appears to belie interest in the federal program, which provides access to health insurance for hard-to-insure individuals who often are turned away from the private markets due to several reasons, including preexisting conditions.
“We’ve received over 500 calls in interest,” said DeAnza Sapien, senior administrator at the New Mexico Medical Insurance Pool, which is helping to run the federal program in the state. “And that doesn’t include a Blue Cross Blue Shield line.” More …
Hard-to-insure New Mexicans will now have access to a federal high-risk insurance pool that could cover 1,000 to 1,500 New Mexicans who’ve gone without coverage for six months and have been unable to buy insurance, often because of preexisting conditions.
The…
It’s crunch time for a handful of state cabinet secretaries and top aides charged by Gov. Bill Richardson with drafting a road map for how to implement federal health care reform in New Mexico. But even after all the work, the plan – viewed as a guide to help New Mexico get ready for the new federal health care law — will be short on specifics and tall on the hard slogging ahead.
More than 25,700 small businesses in New Mexico potentially could qualify for a new small business tax credit that is part of the new federal health care law, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.…
Lt. Gov. Diane Denish opposes giving the Public Regulation Commission more say over the state reviews premium increase requests from health insurers, saying doing so could pose a conflict of interest in the state’s rate-review process. Denish’s position puts her at odds with other high-profile state elected officials, particularly New Mexico’s Attorney General Gary King, who supports such an idea, as the state’s current process for reviewing health insurance rate requests has come under increasing scrutiny.
The U.S. government responded late Wednesday to legal challenges to the federal health care law brought by several states’ Attorneys General in a Florida state court, the Wall Street Journal tells us.
While filed in Florida, the government’s response…
