Advocates for New Mexico's Children

Each month, the Human Services Department posts figures showing the number of people in different categories enrolled in Medicaid (with a four-month lag). They just released the numbers for October 2011, broken down by adults and children and by various categories. The reports are available here. Once again, children’s enrollment was down to 336,436. This is about the same as October 2010 (336,034), even though the number of New Mexico children has grown almost 2 percent over the year.

Here is a graph that shows children’s enrollment in New Mexico Medicaid from late 2006 through the present, and then projected (by HSD) through 2013. From 2007 to 2010, enrollment grew at almost 7 percent per year, partly because of the recession but also because HSD was reaching out to families to enroll their kids. 

The graph shows that enrollment has gone absolutely flat since the summer of 2010. The graph also shows that HSD is continuing to project very low enrollment growth into the future—about 1 percent per year.

In November 2009, HSD gave a list to the Legislative Finance Committee of various “cost containment” measures they had undertaken to reduce costs in the Medicaid program.  One of the entries was “limit outreach/aggressive recertification.” Medicaid Director Julie Weinberg was quite candid in telling the Legislature and other public audiences that HSD had essentially ceased any special outreach to enroll children because the budget wouldn’t permit significant new enrollment. The results of that slow-down (together with a little improvement in the economy) are shown above.

At last year’s Legislative session, the Legislature and Governor were truly facing a potential crisis in the Medicaid program because the federal stimulus funds were set to expire (and did) on June 30, 2011. They came up with some $300 million in new state funding to fill that gap, and NM Voices for Children publicly thanked them on stepping up to the plate.

But now that this challenge has been met, there is no excuse to continue the slow-down in kids’ enrollment. There are still an estimated 50,000 New Mexico children who are eligible but not enrolled in Medicaid. Many of them are Native Americans and/or located in rural areas. We urge HSD to begin once again to focus with providers and advocates on how we can step up the enrollment of our children in Medicaid.

Children have a broad and unique range of health care needs, which is well-covered by Medicaid. It provides child preventive services, including immunizations and developmental screenings.  Appropriate health care can help children avoid preventable and serious chronic conditions like obesity, heart disease, and Type II diabetes, and promote adequate nutrition and physical activity. Vision, hearing, and dental care—often considered “extras” in health coverage for adults—are among the services children need in order to develop and achieve their full potential. These are services that lower-income kids can get if they are enrolled in Medicaid. If they are not, these kids will mostly do without, and their education will suffer along with their health. Please, let’s get these kids enrolled!

Nick Estes is NM Voices’ Deputy Policy Director

Taxes matter. Despite the beating they get in public discourse, taxes are not bad. They are not to ‘blame’ for any number of evils. They are simply a tool. Taxes are the pooling of our resources in order to accomplish things collectively that few of us could accomplish on our own. Taxes are how we build roads, educate kids, maintain law and order, and provide a whole host of other services and infrastructure few of us would be willing to live without. Taxes are our investment in our quality of life. But the way they are talked about, you would think taxes are a proxy for something sinister.

Taxes are a proxy—for something necessary, not something bad.

Imagine how we would sound if we used words like ‘roads,’ ‘education,’ ‘public safety,’ and ‘heath care’ instead of ‘taxes.’

Would you want to be heard saying, “I can’t believe I pay for roads when I fill my gas tank”? Or, “first responders really hike up the cost of my mortgage.” Or, “my water bill wouldn’t be so bad if I could get out of paying for public safety.” It might make us sound stupid or shallow but we would, at least, be speaking more honestly about taxes than we do now.

Taxes are a big topic of discussion at the Roundhouse these days, thanks to a couple of recent studies that rank the states on their various tax rates. New Mexico’s taxes are either too high or too low, depending on which study you favor. But imagine how the conversations might sound if legislators used the same technique cited above when talking about taxes.

You might hear, “our network of roads and traffic signals is a burden to new businesses.” Or, “companies don’t relocate here because we educate our populace.” Or, “we’re never going to recruit new business until we cut back on our court system.”

The point of this exercise is that when we talk about taxes we’re generally taking about the wrong issue. What we should really be talking about is what we want to accomplish as a community. What kind of state we want to live in. Do we want to live in a state where 25 percent of children lived in poverty before the recession? Are we OK with only providing pre-kindergarten to 15 percent of our 4-year-olds? Can we ignore the fact that tens of thousands of our children can’t see a doctor for routine health care?

You’d be hard pressed to find a legislator on either side of the aisle who would answer yes to these questions. But you would find some that want to cut our tax rates even though such a move would only sap our ability to solve these problems.

Taxes matter. It matters how much money the state collects and from whom it is collected. But what matters most is why we collect them in the first place. Roads. Education. Public safety. Health care. These are not partisan issues. Most of us agree that we want these things—not just for ourselves but for our families, our neighbors, and the generations that will follow us. Maybe if we spent more time talking about why we collect taxes, we would agree more on how much we should collect and from whom.

Bill Jordan in NM Voices’ Policy Director

If you’d like to comment on this blog post, please do so on our FaceBook page.

Within weeks of taking office, Governor Susana Martinez called for a “substantial redesign” of New Mexico’s Medicaid program—the health insurance that covers one in four New Mexicans, about two-thirds of whom are children. She has repeatedly said that the program is financially unsustainable, even though a couple of studies conducted by New Mexico Voices for Children have shown that just the opposite is true—that the program is an economic engine for our state and will more than pay for itself through 2020 as federal health care reform continues to come online. (One report is about the economic benefits of the Medicaid expansion under federal health reform and the other is about the tax revenue benefits from that same reform.)

The consultants hired by the state to recommend changes to the program have completed their assessment of the redesign and have made their report to the governor. Any day now she will decide which of the recommendations she’ll implement. No doubt, some administrative changes will be welcomed by everyone. However, most advocates for health care for kids fear the governor may also elect to implement “cost sharing” that would likely result in low-income children losing access to their health care.

Two governors named Scott are proposing changes to their states’ Medicaid program that will be devastating for their kids. Governor Rick Scott is proposing a plan for Florida that could result in 800,000 people, most of them children, losing their health care. In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker (who faces a recall election for implementing other unpopular policy changes) is calling for a plan that could result in 64,000 losing their health care coverage. 

Let’s not go where the Scotts have gone! New Mexico can and should do better.

Bill Jordan is NM Voices’ Policy Director

If you’d like to comment on this blog post, please do so on our Facebook page.

At a time when workers’ rights and even child labor laws are under attack, it is encouraging to see a significant and hard-won victory for farm workers in New Mexico. Just before the holidays, Second District Judge Valerie Huling ruled that farm and ranch workers in New Mexico are entitled to be covered by workers’ compensation benefits. The New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty brought the lawsuit on behalf of workers who were injured on the job. At question was the constitutionality of a state law that denies workers’ compensation benefits to farm and ranch workers. New Mexico Voices for Children had long supported amending the law to allow them to get coverage, but legislation to do so repeatedly failed in the Legislature.

Congratulations and gratitude goes out to our friends at the Center on Law and Poverty for representing the workers and winning the case. Our thanks also go out to the injured workers who were courageous enough to bring the lawsuit on behalf of the 10,000 agricultural workers who will now benefit directly from workers’ compensation benefits. It’s a good time to remember that when more of us are protected, all of us benefit from a safer and more just society.

Bill Jordan is NM Voices’ Policy Director

If you’d like to comment on this blog post, please do so on our FaceBook page.

The shopping malls are filled with holiday spirit, colorful displays, and high-tech gadgets like the latest cell phones and video games.  It’s true that kids love these kinds of things for Christmas. But, as we lighten our wallets to acquire these gifts, we might want to pause for a moment and ask, “Is this the best way we can show not just our own children—but all children—that we love and care for them?” For children who are homeless and extremely vulnerable during this general time of cheer, there are things we can do to have a more lasting, positive effect.

The number of children experiencing homelessness in New Mexico is growing fast.  We have 16,260 homeless children—that’s enough kids to fill The Pit, UNM’s basketball arena. These children are often hungry, frequently sick, and always fearful of what each new day may bring. They never know how long they’ll stay in one place and many of them suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or other emotional problems. They live in a world basically invisible to most of us. They have no power and no voice to be heard by the policy-makers who could help. 

The current recession—accompanied by long-term unemployment, and stunning numbers of housing foreclosures and personal bankruptcy rates—has led to an increase in child and family homelessness. Up to six million families in the U.S., many of them middle- and low-income and minority families, have lost their homes due to foreclosure, and about double that number may lose their homes before the economy regains its balance. In New Mexico, the number of homeless children has more than doubled since 2007 when the recession began, yet we have no state planning effort focused on addressing this immense and growing problem.

Christmas for these children will be anything but magical. Even the massive and generous charitable contributions, the donated toys and gifts caring people provide, will probably only last through the holiday season. Then it’s back to life as usual for these kids.

As a new parent, I know that what my child needs from me—not just this Christmas, but long-term—is my presence, love, and care. He also needs a sense of security and safety much more than the high-ticket gifts of the season. This is also what homeless children in our state need, and though I cannot give that to them directly, I can stand and be a voice for them with those who make the policy decisions that can impact their young lives for better or worse.

What all children in New Mexico really need this Christmas—and year round—is for policy makers to address issues central to their health, education, and their families’ economic well-being. These are powerful issues and our action (or inaction) on them today will affect every child’s future and ability to attain the American dream. Parents can also be powerful advocates and need to ask our state’s policy-makers to improve the lives of these children and their families—to save families from foreclosure and children from homelessness, to keep food on their tables, and ensure they have access to health care and the early care and education opportunities that will set them on the path to a solid and successful future.  As a parent, I hope to see more parents using their voices to speak for children in the new year—giving a more enduring and valuable gift for all our children. 

For more information on how you can get involved in ending child homelessness, visit the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness,  check out the Campaign to End Child Homelessness—a program of the National Center on Family Homelessness (or go directly to the New Mexico Campaign page)—or contact direct service providers like Cuidando los Niños. You can also make a donation to New Mexico Voices for Children to support our work to improve the economic security of New Mexico’s most vulnerable families and kids.

Kwaku Sraha is NM Voices’ Finance Manager.
Chris Hollis, NM Voices’ KIDS COUNT Director, also contributed to this post.

If you’d like to comment on this blog post, please do so on our FaceBook page.