Urgent Call to Action

Welcome to the 6^th week of the 54^th Legislative Session

I can’t believe there are only 2 full weeks left to this session. That being said, there are some bills starting to move in directions that are concerning to us and we now need all members help to make sure they don’t go any further. Two in particular:

House Bill 295 and Senate Bill 279, both titled Health Security Act. This makes a commission to study and implement a state health insurance plan, or single payer system, Medicare for all, whatever name you want to call it, it will do away with private insurance plans in NM.

In the House the bill was passed by the Health and Human Services Committee and has been withdrawn from the House Appropriations and Finance Committee and sent straight to the House calendar for a vote, possibly as early as today. You must please send an email or call your representative. Here is a link to a map to find your district if you aren’t sure and then a link to a list of all the legislators and their contact information. Please reach out to as many as you can and ask them to vote no on HB295, Ask them not to spend all of our excess funds available this year to study or implement a plan that is not necessary in this state considering over half this state is already on Medicaid or Medicare, and that it has been attempted in many states so far and none of them have been successful in implementing it or finding the funding to even start except Vermont who quickly shut it down due to high costs and inefficiency , and it will cause the doctor shortage we already have in this state to become even worse when the doctors leave due to low reimbursement levels paid under Medicaid and Medicare. Those are just a few of the many reasons not to spend our valuable resources on this when we have much higher priorities to address.

In the Senate the bill has passed the Senate Public Affairs Committee and is sitting in the Senate Judiciary Committee and not scheduled at this time to be discussed. Here is a list of the Senate Judiciary Committee Members and instructions on how to send all committee members a mass email with the same information as above in the email. Here is also a link to a map of districts for the Senate and a link to all Senators contact information. Again, please reach out to as many as you can with the same information as above.

Other news for this 6th week, there has been a Home Warranty Bill dropped very late, it is House Bill 632. We have reached out to the Superintendent, as well as several of the construction industry lobbyists, and a construction law attorney who is actually working on a bill for the next session that will encompass not only the Home Builders but also the commercial builders. They all feel this bill is a start to the “Right to Cure” issues in NM but it probably won’t get very far. We are remaining neutral on this bill and will watch its progress and keep everyone posted. Once the session is over we will begin putting together a group to help pass legislation or create further legislation to bring the “Right to Cure” laws that are very much needed in NM to fruition. Those of you interested in discussing this further please contact me.