New Mexico could eliminate some private insurers in single-payer medical option

Military personnel love TRICARE, veterans mostly like the VA and most Native Americans won’t support a copay because We the People are responsible for their medical care by treaty.

New Mexico has a high number of people with insurance through Medicaid and like South Dakota many are American Indians. Of the 342,000 patients who visited the emergency departments of the three biggest New Mexico medical providers in 2015 forty percent were Medicaid patients.

I like the idea of rolling the funding for Obamacare, TRICARE, Medicare, the Indian Health Service and the VA together then offering Medicaid for all by increasing the estate tax, raising taxes on tobacco and adopting a carbon tax. Reproductive freedoms should be included just like the military does under TRICARE.

Under a state-administered plan some segments of the private insurance industry would disappear and significant additional funding sources would likely be needed to fully cover the cost of the plan — through some combination of additional contributions by employers, reduced payment rates to medical providers or higher costs for patients. New Mexico cut the uninsured rate roughly in half since expanding Medicaid in 2014 to more people on the cusp of poverty. Enrollment leveled off in recent years with about 10% of the population still uninsured. It’s still unclear what impact the COVID-19 pandemic and a stalled economy will have on the number of people who go without insurance. [New Mexico studies single-payer care amid pandemic]