N.M. asks clarity on Medicaid expansion

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Health care for New Mexico's neediest doesn't come cheap.

The Legislative Finance Committee projects the state's share of Medicaid will grow to nearly $1 billion by 2014.

That same year, New Mexico has the option of expanding Medicaid to cover adults in the state making less than $15,000, a decision Gov. Susana Martinez is wrestling with.

Last week, the governor said her administration sent the U.S. Health and Human Services Department a letter asking for clarification on how a Medicaid expansion would be implemented.

"We need to know what flexibility we're allowed," Martinez told KRQE News 13. "We need to know how to do this correctly because there aren't a lot of instructions on how this is done if we're going to expand it."

While the state is waiting for a response on those issues, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was visiting Albuquerque to tour a community health clinic.

Sebelius had her own pitch for the state expanding Medicaid, something that would be paid by the federal government for the first three years before dropping to 90 percent of the expense by 2020.

"[It's] an incredibly generous offer for states and it reduces the amount of uncompensated care delivered through hospitals and the burden on community hospitals," Sebelius said.

But Paul Gessing, president of the Rio Grande Foundation says the deal isn't as sweet as it looks.

"There's no such thing as free money, and what might seem like free money initially is going to turn into a massive burden on New Mexico taxpayers down the road," Gessing said. "We have a broken system that isn't working right now. We don't need to expand a broken system."

The New Mexico Human Services Department says expanding Medicaid would cost up to $500 million more between 2014 and 2020 with a consistent recurring cost each year after that. That increased cost would cover up to 170,000 more New Mexicans.

However, Sebelius told News 13 there are issues with not expanding Medicaid in New Mexico, a state where nearly one in four are uninsured.

"Some of the criticism assumes there is no cost to doing nothing," Sebelius said. "There's a cost on our low-income workers, who may not have affordable healthcare, who are less productive because they're sick more often, who don't have early preventative checks so they end up in acute care in hospitals and then no way to pay those bills in hospital."

Five states including neighboring Texas have already said they are opting out of expanding Medicaid. Twelve states and the District of Columbia have said they will go forward with expanding Medicaid.