Health Care

Our governor, Bill Richardson, has wanted universal health care in this state for a long time. He thought he would get it this year but didn’t. He found out that he just couldn’t order the legislators to do something and, snap!, it was done. I was privileged to be present in the Health and Government Affairs Committee the day that his bill, HB 62, was introduced and there was instant balking over the fact that the members had not had time to even read the bill. It was tabled and that was the beginning of the end. There did emerge a version from the House that was acceptable to most members but the Senate still saying no.

So, what is the future of universal health care insurance in New Mexico? Well the governor is probably going to call a special session to deal with it. I hope the legislature is very careful about what they do. Most of the plans going around have some cohersive feature to them. In other words if you don’t want health care insurance that’s just too bad. You will be made to pay by having your wages garnished. Now what about people, of which there are too many in New Mexico, that are trying to subsist on $10 an hour jobs or less? Can they even afford to  work if they must pay out $100 or more a month for health insurance? We are talking about a LOT of workers here in this state that are in these kinds of jobs. So if the taxpayers have to subsidize them where will the money come from to do that? Raise taxes or cut programs? And cut which programs? What about illegals? Will the tax payers be forced to pay for them as well? And, is it constitutional to garnish a workers wages to force them into an insurance pool they can’t afford to be in? We have laws forcing drivers to get auto liablility insurance to reimburse others from potential harm caused by other drivers. But, can we force someone to protect themselves?

Finally, under the governor’s watch the the Retiree Health Care Authority that serves retired public sector workers and retired educators has darn near been ruined with tremendous losses in investments. Service from the Authority’s employees is close to nonexistant. Do we want to put health care insurance for the whole state in the same hands?