prompting urgent action in several Democratic states, but not in Republican ones<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cThese are temporary fixes,\u201d Democratic state House Speaker Javier Mart\u00ednez said. \u201cThese are insurmountable holes for any state to plug.\u201d<\/p>\n
Funding for food<\/p>\n
New Mexico lawmakers approved a quick infusion of state spending on food assistance through SNAP for elderly recipients.<\/p>\n
Nearly one-fourth of New Mexico residents receive food assistance through SNAP, making it a major line of defense against hunger.<\/p>\n
Food banks get an $8 million bump in direct state support, under the bill. And $2 million is devoted to restocking food pantries at universities and public schools.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s big bill expands work and reporting requirements for SNAP participants, ends eligibility for many noncitizens, and changes benefit calculations.<\/p>\n
Rural health care<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s big bill sets aside $50 billion over five years for rural hospitals, providers and clinics \u2014 but that may not offset significant cuts.<\/p>\n
The stakes are high in New Mexico, where about 38% of residents rely on Medicaid. And state lawmakers \u2014 Republicans and Democrats \u2014 are warning of a rural health care crisis as New Mexico struggles to retain medical professionals and keep clinics and hospitals open.<\/p>\n
State Sen. Pat Woods, a Republican from the state\u2019s sparsely populated eastern plains, co-sponsored changes to rural health care grants aimed at shoring up existing health care services at rural clinics and hospitals. A 64-3 vote of the House on Thursday sent the bill to the governor for consideration.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to figure out a way to fund and keep some of these clinics open. What\u2019s going to happen in the future? Who the hell knows,\u201d Woods told a panel of state lawmakers. \u201cWhat I worry about is keeping these clinics and hospitals open until the dust settles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subsidies for insurance, public radio<\/p>\n
Legislators also voted to set aside $17 million to ensure subsidies don\u2019t lapse on New Mexico\u2019s Affordable Care Act exchange.<\/p>\n
That initiative also would extend insurance subsidies to middle-income residents whose earnings equal or exceed 400% of the federal poverty level \u2014 roughly $128,000 annually for a family of four.<\/p>\n
Democratic state Sen. Carrie Hamblen of Las Cruces said the insurance subsidies will help avoid a \u201cperfect storm of unaffordability,\u201d warning that rising insurance rates threaten to undermine participation in the exchange and make matters worse.<\/p>\n
Separately, legislators approved $6 million in state funding for public broadcasting stations \u2014 including $430,000 for five tribal stations hit hard by the defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by Congress and Trump. Approved federal grants to the stations for the current federal budget year were clawed back, under a bill signed by Trump in July.<\/p>\n
Another bill awaiting the governor\u2019s signature would give the New Mexico Health Department greater decision-making authority regarding adult and childhood immunizations and state vaccine purchases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) \u2014 New Mexico lawmakers moved quickly Thursday at a special legislative session to prop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[40312,54,122,40307,35952,11917,163,17586,2579,521,85,46,40308,40305,40309,1424,40311,40306,40310,238,2486,917,17905],"class_list":["post-52877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-carrie-hamblen","tag-donald-trump","tag-general-news","tag-george-muoz","tag-government-budgets","tag-government-programs","tag-health","tag-health-care-costs","tag-health-care-industry","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-javier-martnez","tag-michelle-lujan-grisham","tag-nathan-small","tag-new-mexico","tag-new-mexico-state-government","tag-nm-state-wire","tag-pat-woods","tag-politics","tag-subsidies","tag-u-s-news","tag-u-s-republican-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}