The Legislative Health and Human Services Committee endorsed a draft health insurance exchange bill Tuesday afternoon.
Lawmakers have been threatening legal action if Gov. Susana Martinez's administration creates an exchange through the executive branch.
Democrats have been alarmed by the New Mexico Health Insurance Alliance's role in governing the exchange. As nonprofit created by the Legislature in 1994 to connect small businesses in the state with affordable health plans, HIA already functions in part as a health insurance exchange. Yet many on the left are concerned that insurers already have too much influence on HIA to govern an exchange meant to protect consumers.
The health insurance exchange will be the entity through which individuals and businesses shop for coverage under Obamacare. States can choose to create their own exchanges or let the federal government establish one for them. New Mexico faces a Dec. 14 deadline to give the federal government details on how its exchange will comply with the complex Affordable Care Act.
Gov. Martinez vetoed a health insurance exchange bill in 2011 yet moved forward through the New Mexico Human Services Department to starting crafting an exchange. This angered Democrats, who recently sent a letter to Gary King, D, the state's attorney general, requesting his office to investigate the legality of the administration using the 1994 legislation that created the HIA to move forward with its own executive-branch exchange. In a Nov. 15 letter, Mark Reynolds, assistant attorney general, wrote to Raymond Mensack, the general counsel for HSD, that, "We believe that legislation creating a New Mexico exchange is necessary."
Outgoing Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Bernalillo, chair of the committee, noted that the draft bill was "quite different" from the 2011 bill the Legislature passed but Gov. Martinez, R, vetoed.
Looking at the Republican side of the table, Feldman, who authored the 2011 bill, added, "So that's some food for thought."
She was responding to concerns from Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Bernalillo, about conflicts of interest with insurers sitting on the board of the exchange.
The committee heard testimony from Michael Hely, a nonpartisan staff attorney for the Legislative Council Services, who drafted the bill. Members of the committee began squabbling over specific language in the draft bill. Of particular concern to Rep. Nora Espinoza, R-Chaves, was language that she construed could allow non-citizens to obtain coverage--which is forbidden by Obamacare.
Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Bernalillo, said that if a health insurance exchange is a horse that everyone can ride, the draft bill looked more like a zebra.
He indicated that the administration faces a tough battle in pushing its version of the exchange through a Democratic-controlled Legislature.
"I think that this is going to be one dead zebra really quick," he said. "I prefer the exchange we passed two years ago." The original version of this blog post reported Gov. Susana Martinez's administration proposed the legislation. But Sen. Feldman emailed SFR that the draft was "put forward by the Health and Human Services Committee itself, and the Secretary [of the Department of Human Services] said the department was basically o.k. with it." "We were pleasantly surprised that the administration, faced with the prospect of a law suit [sic], said they liked the bill," writes Sen. Feldman. "But of course, although the bill was endorsed by the committee, it is just a starting point and will doubtless be revised during the upcoming session. But at least it is a starting point."
On Tuesday, SFR called Matt Kennicott, spokesman for the New Mexico Human Services Department, about the draft bill. He hasn't yet returned SFR's voicemail.
Santa Fe Reporter