New Mexico State Senator Dede Feldman's Blog

Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce Weighs in for the Insurance Exchange

This is from today's Albuquerque Journal....

don't forget to call the Governor (505-476-2200)

and ask her to sign Senate Bill 38&370 

Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Insurance Exchange Can Give Us Healthier Future
By Don Chalmers And Terri Cole
Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce
   
   
    During the recent Legislative session, the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce urged the Legislature to create a Health Insurance Exchange: a consumer-friendly marketplace where individuals and small employers can purchase insurance more easily and cheaply than they can today. 
    
    The Legislature passed SB 38/370 to create the exchange, and we hope the governor will sign this bill. 
    
    More than 450,000 New Mexicans have no health insurance. Individuals who work for small businesses are the largest single group in the state who do not have this protection. In fact, almost two-thirds of New Mexico's small businesses cannot afford health insurance for their employees. 
    
    The chamber endorsed a health insurance exchange for New Mexico to help our small-business owners across the state provide this important benefit. 
    
    The Health Insurance Exchange brings individuals and small businesses together into a larger "risk pool" to get the lower insurance rates offered to larger employers. This would be a big advantage to small businesses in New Mexico: They could compete for talent with larger employers who do offer health insurance benefits, and their workforce would be healthier. 
    
    The Health Insurance Exchange will promote competition among insurance companies and will rate all the health plans to help consumers make informed decisions about which plan is best for them. All the details of the plans offered will be available online to make it easy to compare the plans. 
    
    Under the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, passed a year ago, each state was given the option to set up its own exchange, with features responsive to its needs. However, if we fail to do this by 2012, the federal government will establish an exchange for us, and it may not have the characteristics that we want. 
    
    The Legislature's passage of the exchange bill followed eight months of meetings by a joint legislative and executive working group, with a diverse group of stakeholders from the business and insurance sector, as well as ordinary citizens, who ultimately recommended a uniquely New Mexican health insurance exchange. The exchange will be a quasi-public nonprofit corporation, with the governor, the Legislature and the superintendent of insurance making appointments to the board of directors. The exchange is required to be fully transparent and make public all of its financial matters. 
    
    Tax credits are already available to qualified small businesses to help pay for the cost of health insurance. Nationwide, this is expected to save small businesses billions of dollars. These tax credits will be available on the exchange, as will subsidies for health insurance premiums for lower-income families. The exchange will closely coordinate with Medicaid to provide a "one-stop shop" to obtain health insurance. 
    
    Estimates are that more than 300,000 currently uninsured New Mexicans will become insured, either through the planned federal expansion of Medicaid or through affordable coverage from the exchange. This is expected to reduce insurance premiums for those of us who have insurance. 
    
    There will be no cost to the state, including no new taxes, for developing the exchange; the federal government will pay the full set-up costs until 2015. The exchange thereafter will run on fees charged to the participating insurance companies. 
    
    Moving ahead with the exchange now, rather than waiting, is important. We don't want the federal government to set up and run an exchange for us. 
    
    Moreover, if we act now we will obtain the maximum amount of federal financial assistance to operate the exchange. Finally, starting now will allow us to shake out the kinks we are bound to discover as we go forward. 
    
    The bottom line is that the exchange is good for business. It will help our small businesses and their employees obtain access to health care insurance at a reasonable cost. SB 38/370 will bring millions of federal dollars into our state and require transparency regarding health insurance plans and financial matters. The Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce urges the governor to sign Senate Bill 38/370, the Health Insurance Exchange. 
    
    Don Chalmers is vice chairman of Healthcare and Terri Cole is president and CEO of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce. 
    

Final Wrap-Up: 2011 Legislature is History

Both Chambers Melt Down at the 11^th Hour

 Yes, the news reports were correct.  Both the House and the Senate chambers were the scene of filibusters on the last crucial day of the session.

In the House, Rep. Patty Lundstrum, Chair of the Transportation Committee, spoke at length about the $237 million capital outlay bill, which the House had amended in its final days to include some projects that made it unacceptable to the Senate when it came over for approval in the final minutes of the session.  As a result, the entire capital outlay bill failed to pass the legislature, which means that state roads and senior citizen centers will not get needed repairs, and other job-creating projects will be put on hold.   The bill's demise also means the state can't tap into $55 million in federal matching funds for some of these projects.

In the Senate, Sen. John Ryan engaged in a rambling, stream of consciousness speech that lasted over an hour.  The speech, reportedly sanctioned by the Governor, was staged to protest the fact that the Governor’s bill to prevent social promotions had not yet been heard on the floor of the Senate, and precious time was being taken up by other bills. The bill was one of three major education reforms promoted by the Governor.  One of these, which would grade local public schools—A-B-C-D-F, passed and another, which would have pegged teacher salaries to student improvement, failed a few days earlier. Sen. Rod Adair joined in the filibuster as well.

See it all at http://www.nmpolitics.net/index/2011/03/session-ends-with-meltdown-capital-outlay-bill-dies

Both chambers of the legislature adjourned “sine die,” at Noon March 19th, with hundreds of bills left on the table to die a not-so-quiet death. 

 Thirteen Good Bills that Made It

Here’s my list (in no particular order) of lesser-known bills that made it through the process, and deserve the Governor’s signature:

•HB 172 to ban corporal punishment in the schools, sponsored by Rep. Rick Meirs

•SB 47 and HB 161 to require an accounting of “tax expenditures” i.e. just how much tax credits, deductions and loopholes are costing the taxpayer in funds not collected. These bills were sponsored by Sen. Tim Keller and Rep. Eleanor Chavez

•SB 432, sponsored by Sen. Tim Eichenberg, expands the Governmental Conduct Act to apply to local governments and restricts the award of contracts to past and present public officials

•SB 9, sponsored by Sen. Peter Wirth, expands time-on-the-road required for teens to get drivers’ licenses. I started this graduated drivers license program back in 2000.  It will save additional teen lives.  Wirth is sensitive to this because of a bad teen crash in Santa Fe last year.

•HB 187, sponsored by Rep. Ed Sandoval will expand the abilities of dental hygienists and auxiliaries to fill the gap in access to dental care, especially in rural New Mexico.  It’s a result of a ceasefire between the dentists and hygienists.

•SB 44 Film Production Tax Credit Tracking and Review, sponsored by Sen. Tim Keller… so that we know the real costs of the film subsidy offered in New Mexico.

•SB 78 School Bullying Prevention, sponsored by Sen. Mary Jane Garcia, to get school districts to enact prevention programs.  According to the 2009 New Mexico Risk Resiliency Survey, 31% of NM middle school students and 19.5% of high school students reported being bullied in the last year.

•SB 63 Government Food Purchasing Requirements sponsored by Sen. Keller would require a minimum percentage of the total dollar amount of food purchased by state agencies and local public bodies to be food produced in New Mexico.

•SB 144 Require School Free Breakfast Programs, sponsored by Sen. Cynthia Nava, would allow schools to take advantage of federal funds by being flexible as to when students could eat breakfast. According to an analysis prepared by New Mexico Appleseed, this bill could leverage $15.5 million in federal funds and feed approximately 55,000 children.

•SB 232 Buprenorphine Treatment for Opiod Addictions, sponsored by Sen. Bernadette Sanchez and Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino.  In spite of the weird name, this bill will really help with the alarming heroin problem among young people here. It requires the Human Services Department to ensure that recipients of substance abuse services have timely access to office-based buprenorphine treatment, which includes this effective new drug for heroin addiction. 

•SB 321 Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act, sponsored by Sen. Richard Martinez and Rep. Moe Maestas, will provide certain offenders with access to evidence- based treatment in lieu of incarceration 

•SB 417 Native American Suicide Prevention, sponsored by Sen. Lynda Lovejoy will create a clearinghouse to provide culturally appropriate prevention and intervention for Native American students, who have an alarming rate of youth suicide.  The Thoreau area has been particularly hard hit.

•HB196 Uniform Child Witness Protection bill, sponsored by Rep. Bill O’Neil provides methods by which children under the age of 16 in both criminal and non- criminal proceedings are protected from testifying in open court, face to face with a defendant in a criminal case, or in front of all parties in a non-criminal case. This will protect kids while preserving the rights of the accused.

 … And Seven Good Bills that Didn’t

 •SB 108 a long overdue fix to the “property tax lightening” problem sponsored by Sen. Tim Eichenberg, in collaboration with Sen. Steve Neville and others

•HB 197, sponsored by Rep. Antonio Lujan, would have banned text messaging while driving

 •SB 547, sponsored by Sen. Peter Wirth, would have required disclosure of who is funding the huge influx of independent political advertising.  The bill was tailored to meet the requirements of the Citizens United Supreme Court case.

•HB 125 & 158, sponsored by Rep. Al Park, would have addressed for- profit adoptions and questionable advertising and agency practices in this vulnerable area

 •SB 406 Mortgage Fair Foreclosure Act, sponsored by Sen. Michael Sanchez, would have given homeowners reasonable notice prior to the loss of their home and afforded a meaningful opportunity to participate in loss mitigation to prevent the loss of their homes. This bill was supported by the AG and opposed by the banking industry.

•HB 67, sponsored by Rep. Bill O’Neil, would have required legislators to wait a year before becoming lobbyists.  It was similar to a bill I had which also died in the Senate.

 

 

For Health Care, Some Legislative Victories

     Four of my top priority bills, all health care-related, passed the Legislature and are headed to the Governor’s desk!  I am delighted, with your help, to have garnered bipartisan support for these bills.  They are:

            •SB 208/488, which is also sponsored by Sen. Mary Kay Papen, to provide a transparent process for reviewing health insurance rate requests made to the Department of Insurance. By setting a higher standard for rate increases, this will bring new protections to NM consumers who are now struggling to afford rising premiums.  Rates must now be actuarially sound, reasonable, not excessive, inadequate or unfairly discriminatory.   Public hearings and plain language web postings of data are included in the process.

            •SB 38/370, which wrapped together bills from Sen. George Munoz and myself, will establish a NM Health Insurance Exchange to provide a transparent marketplace for insurance policies.  The Exchange will draw on what we have here--the High Risk Pool and the Health Insurance Alliance-- to facilitate coverage for small businesses, people with pre-existing conditions, and thousands of others.  Funding is provided by the federal government through 2015 and by assessments after that.  The Exchange will not require state funds. 

            •SB 37 to allow individuals and families to donate unused, unexpired, non-narcotic medications back to their doctor or health care clinic so that professionals can re-dispense them to other patients who could not otherwise afford the prescriptions. Prescription drugs are too costly for many in New Mexico, yet at the same time thousands are flushing expensive meds down the toilet.  This bill addresses that problem. The Board of Pharmacy supports it and will develop regulations.

            •SB 14 to collect data about health care professionals in New Mexico will allow us to base our strategy to retain and recruit sorely needed doctors, nurses and other providers based on current facts.  It will be paid for by federal funds and can be used as a magnet for Health Service Corps funding if certain areas are declared shortage areas.

                                How You Can Help

Please contact the Governor’s office if you support any of the bills listed above.  Phone calls (they count them pro and con) can be made to 505-476-2200.

 Letters of support can be faxed to 505-476-2226 or sent to Governor Susana Martinez, Office of the Governor, 490 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501

 You can also e-mail the Governor by going You can also e-mail the Governor by going to: http://www.governor.state.nm.us/Contact_the_Governor.aspx filling out the form and writing your message at the bottom.

 Please send a personal message on behalf of yourself or your small business!

Semi- Final Update from the 2011 Legislature

Midnight in the Chamber, Ides of March, 2011

 Greetings from the frenzied last week of the 2011 Legislature.  Tonight the Senate is debating a budget that came over from the House late in the session, with many issues unresolved. We have spent much of our time in both the Senate and the House debating the Governor’s proposals about drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants, DNA testing for everyone who is arrested for a felony and, in the Senate Rules Committee, confirming the Governor’s appointments for cabinet secretaries. Her most controversial appointment – former astronaut Harrison Schmidt—dropped out at mid-session, and the Secretary- designate for Public Education, who has been at the center of three education reform proposals has not yet been vetted by the Rules Committee. It is hard to believe that by the end of the week all these issues will be resolved. But, they will be-- one way or the other.

To address the $250 million shortfall we faced at the start of the year, the $5.4 billion budget we are debating continues to cut state agencies, schools, health programs, albeit at a lower rate (3%) than last year.  The budget relies on revenue generated by cutting tax credits for the film industry (yielding $25 million), and a “swap” whereby teachers and state employees continue to pay the employers’ part of their pensions, thus reducing their take-home pay ($111 million). Higher education will sustain a 3% cut in this budget, which some predict, may increase tuition or fees by $100 per student.

 Measures to provide revenue, instead of continuing to cut, have not succeeded. A constitutional amendment to allow voters to decide whether to use a small portion of the Permanent Fund for early childhood education has stalled.  And a move to close a loophole whereby out-of-state corporations avoid state taxes was never heard in a single committee. Unfortunately this leaves us with a budget that has been balanced at the expense of kids in the classroom, police, firefighters and those in sometimes desperate need of state services like single mothers, and families with disabled members. 

 Health and Education Bills

 On the other hand, I have had good luck with my health care bills in the Senate, where I joined with other Senators to form consensus measures to create both a health insurance exchange (SB 38 & 370) and a transparent insurance rate reform process (SB 208 & 499). These issues are challenging, and I hope they make it through the House.   And this late news just in:My measure to allow donations of unused prescription drugs back to clinics and doctors (SB 37),  has now passed the House and is on its way to the Governor.  Late Thursday night, SB 208 passed as well! Thanks for all your help on these measures!

Several major education reforms proposed by the new administration have been making their way through the session, including HB 21 to retain children in third grade if they cannot read, SB 502  to peg teacher salaries to improvement in their students’ test scores, and SB 427  to give schools a letter grade. To date, only one of these measures has advanced through the Senate, but there is significant support from Democrats as well as Republicans. I have mixed feelings about all of them and worry that the stigma attached to failure may be counterproductive to improved performance.

  Transparency, Compromise and the Lack Thereof

 Transparency measures have also been a focus of the session, with many of these building on the Sunshine Portal, which was created last year to offer a free, user friendly, searchable web site (http://www.sunshineportalnm.com) which the public can use to search for government documents, contracts, etc.  Under one bill, public school information will be added to the site, and under another, utility issues considered by the PRC. And of course my Health Insurance Rate Review bill requires justifications for rate increases to be posted on the Department of Insurance’s website.

            The state Senate has come under considerable criticism on the airwaves from the Governor’s Office this session, for altering two of the Governor’s priorities—the abolition of drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants and Katie’s Law, which requires DNA tests for anyone arrested for a felony.  I believe that the Senate amendments on both of these served to make them stronger while protecting civil and human rights and-- for drivers licenses-- actually increasing penalties for those who traffic in these documents.  Unfortunately, the Governor has refused to negotiate on these. One of the lessons that I’ve learned from my time in Santa Fe is that compromise is important, and even inevitable. But the new Governor has a different style. 

           What a Winter!!

It seems like a long time since the session began, what with the momentous domestic and international crises that have occurred in the past two months.  First, a historic cold spell and natural gas outage here in New Mexico, then the “facebook” revolution in Egypt with the emotional videos of young protesters in Tahrir Square and the hope that followed their moral victory. Next, the unthinkable revolt against one of the world’s worst dictators, Mohamar Khadaffi and then, the horrifying earthquake and  tsunami in Japan. The nuclear disaster that followed in its wake is ongoing, and we do not yet know whether generations of Japanese will again be affected by radiation. 

Many, Many Thanks to All

 Thanks again to all of you, who filled in my survey, e-mailed, posted comments on this blog, called and came up to the Legislature this year. I got quite a bit of input on drivers’ licenses, among other things. And even if you opposed the compromise we were eventually able to come up with, I value your opinion; and there is always another issue where we agree.  Democracy is a two way street and you are an important part of this process.

 

 

 

Uuncollected Taxes Cost Us Money and Budget Angst

 

The following article by my colleage Sen. Tim Keller ( I think he's the youngest member of the Senate) was published in Sunday's Albuquerque Journal.  He has several bills along the same line to figure out what these credits, exemptions in various areas ( including film) are really costing us.  Too late for this year's budget crunch, but this makes long range sense.  What do you think?

Sunday, March 06, 2011

Base State Budget on Economic Strategy

By Sen. Tim Keller
          With only a few weeks left in the 50th Legislature the halls are filled with all kinds of aphorisms about our state's budget. The usual dichotomy is between those who want to cut spending and how to raise revenues.
        Underneath each option is a wide range of specific proposals, but there is another force at play driving our state's budget and our local economy that until recently has seen little attention.
        Tax expenditures, the tax subsidies, incentives, exemptions and deductions are all forms for tax carve-outs for various industries, special interests and population segments. Together all 107 of these make up an estimated $1 billion in annual taxes we choose not to collect each year.
        The architect of our state's tax code, Franklin Jones, established a "three-legged stool" of tax revenue composed of gross receipts tax, income tax and property tax. However, over the last 30 years we have slowly whittled away at each leg; and now a better analogy for our tax code is "Swiss cheese."
        We have 107 holes in our tax code.
        Looked at another way, each time we pay any kind of tax, we pay 20 percent to cover all the special interests who don't have to pay.
        Some examples of tax expenditures include: boxing, cigarettes, trucking, low income rebates, rock crushing, cultural property, helium, motor vehicles and electronic ID manufacturing. There are also 47 different subsidies for various natural resources worth as much as $300 million.
        These tax carve-outs are so big we could cut them in half, and have enough money to balance the budget and lower gross receipts by 50 cents for all New Mexicans!
        Beyond the dollars at stake there is also an issue of fairness and tax equity.
        We want our government to work for all New Mexicans. It doesn't sit right that 20 percent of our government works great for some, and not for others.
        Our tax policy and budget is a reflection of our priorities. Right now we trade subsidies for funding our budget.
        Mathematically, this is like choosing boxing incentives over education.
        Some of these tax expenditures play an important economic development role and some support vulnerable segments of the population. The challenge is right now we don't know which ones are beneficial to our state and which ones aren't needed.
        Over the summer, the revenue stabilization and tax policy interim committee worked hard on legislation to establish an evaluation process. The first step to a solid economic development, tax and budget policy in New Mexico is to get serious about tracking all our tax expenditures.
        The number of jobs they create, the return on investment and incremental tax dollars generated are knowable quantities that 39 other states track for their programs. Rather than debating about these in concept, we should be supporting incentives that create jobs and eliminating the ones that are redundant, ineffective or based on political favoritism.
        It's critical to not throw the "baby out with the bath water" for the tax expenditures that really do help our state's economy grow and our most vulnerable. But we have to balance the economic benefit of lowering taxes for all business, or targeting specific high growth industries we want to develop in our state. The challenge is that no one wants their particular "ox gored."
        Economic development decisions should be made based on strategy that combines high growth potential industries and our state's unique competitive advantages. It's time to start making budget and tax decisions based more on a long-term economic development strategy and less on scattershot initiatives.
       

Read more: ABQJOURNAL OPINION/GUEST_COLUMNS: Base State Budget on Economic Strategy http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/guest_columns/062218128688opinionguestcolumns03-06-11.htm#ixzz1FvJVcWpd
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