SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL 1

47th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2005

INTRODUCED BY

Dede Feldman

A JOINT MEMORIAL

REQUESTING THE NEW MEXICO CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION TO SUPPORT THE OPPOSITION OF ANY MEDICAID REFORM PROPOSAL THAT SEEKS TO IMPOSE A CAP ON FEDERAL MEDICAID SPENDING IN ANY FORM.

     WHEREAS, medicaid is the fundamental guarantee of health care coverage for the nation's most vulnerable citizens, including low-income children, parents, pregnant women, people with disabilities and senior citizens; and

     WHEREAS, nationally, medicaid provides essential health services to fifty-one million people, and of those more than twenty-five million are children, eight million two hundred thousand are people with disabilities and four million six hundred thousand are elderly; and

     WHEREAS, in New Mexico, over twenty percent of the population are uninsured and over twenty-two percent are on medicaid; and

          WHEREAS, in New Mexico the medicaid enrollment and expenditures have grown steadily since 1993; and

     WHEREAS, in New Mexico the human services department estimates it will take about five hundred seventy million dollars ($570,000,000) in state money to keep medicaid intact for fiscal year 2006, which includes three million dollars ($3,000,000) for a new initiative to insure more working New Mexicans; and

     WHEREAS, enrollment in medicaid in New Mexico grew by eight percent in fiscal year 2004, and state officials expect a six percent increase in 2005 and a four percent increase in 2006; and

     WHEREAS, state officials have worked tirelessly throughout the past year implementing cost-saving initiatives in the medicaid program; and

     WHEREAS, continued cost containment efforts may necessitate a loss of medicaid services and eligibility to our most vulnerable citizens in the state, resulting in an increase in our already substantial uninsured population; and

     WHEREAS, medicaid is the most cost-effective way for New Mexico to subsidize health insurance, with the federal government match of approximately seventy-two percent; and

     WHEREAS, the favorable match that New Mexico has received in the past is declining while medicaid enrollment is increasing; and

     WHEREAS, New Mexico is adversely affected by one of the lowest disproportionate-share hospital funding formulas in the United States; and

     WHEREAS, a block grant or cap on medicaid would lock the state into a financing disadvantage compared to other states; and

     WHEREAS, since 1965, the federal government has helped states pay for the basic health care and long-term services that low-income and disabled Americans need; and

     WHEREAS, medicaid currently accounts for fifty percent of all long-term care dollars and finances the care for seventy percent of people in nursing homes; and

     WHEREAS, medicaid is the safety net for a large portion of the population for which private or public health care systems are unable to provide; and

     WHEREAS, medicaid has become the workhorse of the United States health care system; and

     WHEREAS, when the nation has identified a new problem, from a population that needs health coverage to a provider or health system in need of financial support, medicaid has gotten the call; and

     WHEREAS, arbitrary limits on federal medicaid spending fail to automatically adjust for economic recessions, demographic changes, health care inflation or disasters, including terrorism; and

     WHEREAS, no formula can account for the multitude of factors that affect medicaid costs at different times in different parts of the country; and

     WHEREAS, forty percent of all medicaid expenditures are spent on medicare beneficiaries, despite the fact that they comprise a small percentage of the medicaid caseload and are already fully insured by the medicare program; and

     WHEREAS, in fiscal year 2005, the fifty states and the District of Columbia will spend an estimated combined total of more than one hundred thirty-two billion dollars ($132,000,000,000) on medicaid, and the federal government will contribute nearly one hundred eighty-four billion dollars ($184,000,000,000); and

     WHEREAS, the investment of these medicaid dollars stimulates business activity and creates new jobs; and

     WHEREAS, medicaid spending has an economic multiplier effect that will generate an almost three-fold return in state economic benefits or three hundred sixty-seven billion five hundred million dollars ($367,500,000,000) in increased state-level output of goods and services from increased business activity; and

     WHEREAS, a substantial portion of each state's health care industry relies on medicaid spending; and

     WHEREAS, hospitals, nursing homes and community health centers all depend on medicaid funds flowing into them to keep their doors open; and

     WHEREAS, any cut in medicaid funding will have a considerable effect on the economic viability of each state's health care system; and

     WHEREAS, a recognized need to balance the federal budget should not be met at the expense of the poorest people in the country or at the expense of the poorest states in the country; and

     WHEREAS, the growing number of uninsured and an increase in the aging population require efforts to stabilize and improve health care coverage rather than undermine it;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the New Mexico congressional delegation, as representatives of all New Mexicans, be requested to join in opposition to any medicaid reform proposal that seeks to impose a cap on federal medicaid spending in any form; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to the members of the New Mexico congressional delegation.

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