N.M. Group To Tailor Health Exchange

June 27--Despite the uncertainties surrounding the federal health care law, for New Mexico it's not a question of whether to build a health insurance exchange. It's what a state-run exchange should look like, state officials say.

New Mexico'sHuman Services Department announced the formation of a 12-member task force this week to help the state ask and answer such questions.

As cornerstones of the federal health care law, insurance exchanges are in the news these days because the federal law might not survive past Thursday, at least in its entirety. That's the day the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on a constitutional challenge to the law.

But the administration of Gov. Susana Martinez apparently will plow ahead with plans to create an insurance exchange regardless of what the nation's top court says about the federal law.

"Even if the law falls, the governor would like to see a health care exchange, but have it be unique, by New Mexicans for New Mexicans," said Matt Kennicott, spokesman for the Human Services Department, on Tuesday.

As envisioned under the federal law, health insurance exchanges would function as a way to connect uninsured residents and small businesses without insurance with companies hoping to sell them a policy.

Existing health insurance exchanges aren't a one-size-fits-all type of phenomenon. Massachusetts' model features more government oversight than, say, Utah's exchange, which functions more as a place for policyholders to shop for insurance that best fits their needs.

It's unclear going forward how much freedom states would get to tailor their exchanges to their liking, however, especially if some but not all provisions of the federal law are struck down.

New Mexico officials pointed to the state's high rate of residents without health insurance as the reason they want to pursue an exchange. New Mexico has the second-highest uninsured rate in the nation, topped only by neighboring Texas, with 430,000 of New Mexico's nearly 2.1 million residents going without health insurance.

"The status quo is not acceptable, nor is it sustainable," Martinez's Human Services secretary, Sidonie Squier, was quoted as saying in a Monday news release.

New Mexico's path toward creating a health insurance exchange has been a meandering one.

In March, a state health care official tasked with leading the effort to develop an exchange resigned, saying the Martinez administration was resistant to moving at a pace he thought was needed to set up such a complex entity.

Then the Martinez administration put on hold an earlier request for proposals for a $24 million contract to build the computer framework for a health insurance exchange.

Last month, the Martinez administration hired the firm of Michael O. Leavitt, a former Cabinet secretary under President George W. Bush, to help New Mexico plan a state-run health-insurance exchange through a $1 million yearlong consulting contract.

The Human Services Department wants task force members to oversee the work of a number of groups that are tackling a series of questions about the establishment of a state-run health insurance exchange, according to the department's news release.

The task force members are: Andrew Vallejos of the Human Services Department; Debbie Armstrong; Babette Saenz; Roxane Bly; Mark Padilla; Mike Nunez; Laguna Pueblo Gov. Richard Luarkie; Diana Hobbs; Drew Dolan; Craig Dunbar; Nick Estes; and Rick Wallace of the San Juan Regional Medical Center.

The group's first meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday, June 27, in Room 33 of the Plaza San Miguel Office off St. Michael's Drive in Santa Fe.

Contact Trip Jennings at 986-3050 or at [email protected].

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