Medical professionals voice concerns about Medicaid cuts

Sen. Ben Ray Luján listened to a group of medical professionals at Memorial Medical Regional Center on Wednesday, August 20, to hear about how the recently passed legislation, H.R. 1, will impact southern New Mexico.

H.R. 1 is the budget bill Pres. Donald Trump signed into law on July 4. It comes with steep cuts in Medicaid and will also impact some covered by Medicare.  Dennis Knox, Memorial’s chief executive officer, said the cuts will “limit patient access to care.

“A significant portion of our patients rely on Medicaid for essential healthcare,” he said.

Knox said the loss of federal Medicaid dollars will “severely limit our focus on people and our ability to recruit top talent, especially given New Mexico’s medical malpractice challenges.”

Knox also said that even though Memorial is located in Las Cruces, the hospital serves the surrounding, more rural, counties. So if providers leave rural areas because of the cuts, that will impact Memorial and other urban hospitals.

Knox said the loss of Medicaid as insurance for the most vulnerable could lead patients to not seeking care, which in turn will lead to worsening health conditions and increased hospital admissions for medical issues. He said, for instance, an untreated earache could turn into permanent hearing loss and that the worsening health conditions would be most likely to impact low-income families, seniors and individuals with chronic conditions the most.

Renée Beltran, a parent advocate, talked about how her son, when he was 14, needed mental healthcare. She talked about the difficulties of waiting lists and finding the right treatment and counselor but she said that while it was difficult, her family had hope because they had Medicaid insurance.

Beltran said another of her children was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis as a child. She said he will likely spend the rest of his life requiring medication that costs $6,000 a month. Currently, he is covered under Beltran’s private insurance, which pays the bulk of that prescription cost and his copay is $250 a month. She said his rheumatoid arthritis is too debilitating to allow him to work when he is grown.

“What happens when he has to move off my insurance?” She asked.

Victoria Hernandez, outreach and engagement specialist for New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace, said that due to the new rules established by H.R. 1, DACA recipients will no longer be eligible for coverage through the Affordable Care Act, which in New Mexico is managed through the BeWell New Mexico Health Exchange. DACA recipient coverage ends September 30.

Other changes to the ACA will impact who can enroll and when.

Breanne Diaz, another parent advocate, said she was planning to return to school to better her family’s life and study nursing, but now she is afraid to go into the profession because she needs to keep the full-time job she has now in order to provide private health insurance through her current employer for her son who has health issues.

“Do I become a student and not provide healthcare coverage for my son? Or keep working but we’re never going to succeed further in life? I can’t show my son what hard work and dedication gets you,” Diaz said.

She said that, in addition, with the changes coming through the new law, she is worried about the uncertainty it could bring to the medical field.

“It feels like it’s going to be impossible to get ahead,” Diaz said.

Maribel Vasquez, community outreach program manager for Amador Health, said that 30% of Amador Health’s patients are on Medicaid and 30% are on Medicare.

“Where does that leave Amador without those funds? It’s scary to see where we’re heading. It’s very scary where our future is going. We don’t want to turn patients away but it’s a hard reality,” Vasquez said.

Vasquez also expressed worry about provider burnout.

“Providers are leaving. It’s hard to find providers that have the values to work with the most vulnerable population. They burn out. They leave the state. We’ve lost a couple of providers just in the last couple of months,” she said.

Duke Young, chief executive officer for Mimbres Valley Medical Center, said Medicaid and Medicare cuts could put life-saving care in jeopardy.

He also talked about the economic benefit the hospital brings to the city of Deming and to Luna and its surrounding counties. He said Mimbres Valley Medical Center is the third largest employer in a three-county region.

“We put $45 million into the economy of those counties,” he said.

He said the Deming-based hospital is also the third largest taxpayer in the three-county region with over $6 million in Gross Receipts Tax.

“Not only is it important that we have support to provide services, we’re also an economic driver for that region of the state,” Young said.

Lujan talked about his own health emergency when he suffered a stroke three years ago and how time is critical during health emergencies and said that if rural providers close due to the cuts, that will affect lives.

“When you change a 30-minute drive to a two-hour drive, you don’t survive. That brings that home for me,” he said.