Legislators Want to Get Involved in Medicaid Restructure

Santa Fe New Mexican - Under a proposal backed by a legislative committee Thursday, lawmakers would have to sign off on all significant changes to Medicaid proposed by Gov. Susana Martinez and her administration. The 4-1 vote by the Legislative Health and Human Services Committee threatened to put the Legislature on a collision course with the Republican governor and her team. Martinez, a first-term Republican governor, has made restructuring the state's $3.9 billion Medicaid program a major initiative, provoking pushback from beneficiaries, some state lawmakers and a bevy of health care advocates who have expressed a variety of concerns about changes to the government program that insures more than a quarter of New Mexicans.

That political reality gave the committee-backed proposal the feel of another front in the wide-ranging fight over Medicaid, even though the proposal's chances appear dim during the 30-day legislative session that starts Jan. 17.  "It seems like an exercise in futility," Sen. Gerry Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, said before voting with the committee's three other Democrats to endorse the legislation. Republican Rep. Dennis Kintigh from Roswell, was the lone "no" vote. "She could just veto it," Ortiz y Pino added. "On the other hand, if we never exercise any attempt to exhibit some responsibility, we have no one to blame but ourselves." Read full story here: News New Mexico

Legislators Want to Get Involved in Medicaid Restructure