We need support for a design process led by the Legislative Health & Human Services Committee
The 2023 legislative session begins on January 17, and we will be seeking funding so the Legislative Health and Human Services Committee can continue the critical work needed to design our own homegrown New Mexico Health Security Plan. This committee has the expertise to oversee this project, and it is the best option for the process to move forward. But it needs support from your legislators.
Please contact your legislators and ask them to support funding for the design process. At a time when our state budget is flush, investing now to develop a systemic health care solution will help ensure the future health of our state. We always appreciate when supporters let us know they reached out to legislators.
Interested in learning more about the legislative session?
Join us on January 7 from 10:30 AM to noon for a strategy meeting via Zoom.
Recap
In 2021, the Superintendent of Insurance received funding to begin the Health Security Plan design process, hiring consultants who focused on solutions to rising health care costs – such as hospital global budgets and simpler provider payment and accountability systems.
In 2022, funding for the design process was increased. Aside from posting a request for proposals on hospital global budgets, the superintendent has not been working on our other recommended issues that impact rising costs. His focus has been on access: making sure more New Mexicans have access to public or private health insurance.
We hear a lot about health care access, but health care costs are another big piece of the puzzle. In fact, we are faced with a bleak health care future if we don’t develop systemic solutions to escalating health care costs.
Enabling more New Mexicans to have access to health insurance, while important, will NOT solve the problems of increasing premiums, additional out-of-pocket costs, rising drug prices, growing numbers of hospitals experiencing financial stress, and an administratively complex health care system that frustrates health professionals and patients alike. It is more important than ever that we create the Health Security Plan, which will provide secure coverage for most New Mexicans and reduce the administrative burdens that other countries with universal coverage do not have. Not surprisingly, these countries also have lower health care costs.
The cost problems in health care are interconnected and cannot be solved in isolation. Continued exploration of integrated solutions, with provider and patient input, is urgently needed so the pieces of this complex jigsaw puzzle can be fit together within a sustainable system.