Grim diagnosis for state health care.
Just months after he was elected, Gov. Bill Richardson evoked a surge of excitement among health care advocates when he vowed in his inaugural speech that all New Mexicans were entitled to health insurance.
Now, more than three years later, some of those same advocates say Richardson has favored big business and insurance companies and ignored the recommendations of health-care advocates and consumers when it comes to legislative reform. In the process, they say, he may have actually made things worse for uninsured New Mexicans.
A new study by Families USA, a national health care advocacy group in Washington, DC, backs them up.
New Mexico-the report states-has the highest rate of uninsured, 24 percent of residents. Further, the state is projected to lead the nation for the next five years in uninsured residents.
The portion of private insurance premiums which exist because of un-reimbursed health care costs is higher in New Mexico than anywhere else in the country, a staggering $1,875 for families and $726 for individuals. Further, Families USA projects those numbers will likely jump by more than $3,000 for New Mexican families and nearly $2,000 for individuals by 2010, the biggest spike of any state.
"This comes as no surprise to those of us who've been working on this," Kay Monaco, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children, says. "We haven't had any real policy reforms."
The situation is particularly confounding because Monaco and other advocates were asked by Richardson in 2003 to serve on a task force charged specifically with expanding health care access and coverage.
The task force combined 74 advocates, legislators, providers and insurers. They met publicly for six months before issuing, in October, 2003, an extensive report to the governor.
Ellen Leitzer, co-director of the Senior Citizens' Law Office in Albuquerque and a chairwoman on the committee, says she and Jim Hinton, CEO of Presbyterian Healthcare Services, met with Richardson after the report was finished and requested the committee be kept active.
"He agreed, but nothing ever happened," Leitzer says. "I felt that all along-and there was the same feeling among many people on the committee-that this may not go anywhere, that it was for show."
The task force's main recommendations were to maximize Medicaid to cover more New Mexicans; increase oversight of hospitals with financial problems; and allow private employees to join public workers in pooling for lower health care costs. These recommendations were ignored, Leitzer and Monaco say.
Then, a year later, Richardson authorized a second task force, called the Insure New Mexico Council, specifically to address improving health insurance coverage for small businesses. This smaller group was stocked with providers, legislators and business owners but had none of the advocates from the first committee. And Insure New Mexico's meetings have been closed to the public.
Betina Gonzales McCracken, director of communications for the New Mexico Human Services Department, which spearheaded both task forces, says the
initial recommendations provided an important foundation for Insure New Mexico's work and that its meetings have been kept closed to allow members "to throw out any and every idea." She says advocates are represented on the committee, and pointed to legislation that grew out of Insure New Mexico's work that will cover 35,000 more New Mexicans.
For State Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Bernalillo, who sat on both committees, that effort deserves praise. But Feldman admits the approach advocated by the first committee-a more wide-sweeping versus piecemeal touch to healthcare reform-is what's needed.
For advocates such as Monaco and Leitzer, the bottom line-proved by the recent Families USA report-is that things aren't changing.
"There are no substantive differences on health care between this governor and the last one," Monaco says. "Things just haven't improved."
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