With everything going on in the Legislature and the Biden Administration’s attack on oil and gas, it would be easy to miss the fact that New Mexico is now the MOST reliant state in the entire nation when it comes to the welfare program known as Medicaid.
According to the Albuquerque Journal, an astonishing 43% of all New Mexicans were enrolled in the program statewide as of November
“The federal government provides $4.76 for every dollar in state general funds spent on the program, up from $3.65 pre-pandemic. That equation is providing the state with an additional $385 million.”
Medicaid levels are driven by the generosity of state policies and our impoverished status. HB 122 which has been introduced by Rep. Deborah Armstrong in the 2021 Legislature would impose a new tax on private health insurance in order to fund ADDITIONAL welfare programs in health care.
To state the obvious, after nearly 90 years of single party Dem rule at the state level in NM, the state has an enormous welfare class and enormous public sector work force. Both of those groups , which easily constitute at least 50% of the registered voters in the state, will oppose any meaningful reduction in government spending. That’s why the government spending death cycle is likely to continue unabated in the state until it eventually runs out of other people’s money to spend.