[Nov 26, 2003]

      New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) on Friday announced a four-point plan to create a Public Insurance Purchasing Pool that would provide health care coverage to as many as 635,000 state employees and retirees, the AP/Santa Fe New Mexican reports (AP/Santa Fe New Mexican, 11/23). The plan, based on recommendations from a 70-member state task force, would consolidate health plans for employees and retirees receiving health coverage through state government, local governments, universities and other public entities. Coverage of the state's approximately 400,000 Medicaid beneficiaries would not be included in the purchasing pool, but they could be added in the future, state Human Services Secretary Pamela Hyde said. In addition, Richardson said that businesses in the state that could not afford to offer health insurance to employees might be voluntarily included in the state's pool at a future date. Richardson also said he would ask the state Legislature to consider reforms that would:

• Create an interagency purchasing group run by a single entity to administer publicly-funded behavioral health services in the state;
  
  
• Allow the state to review the financial viability of health care facilities before they are built; and
  
  
• Establish a Statewide Comprehensive Health Plan to implement health care delivery in the state (Quigley, Albuquerque Journal, 11/24).
  
  

Although the details of the pool have not yet been released, Richardson said it would control costs, slow insurance premium increases and increase the number of state residents with insurance (AP/Santa Fe New Mexican, 11/23). "This strategy takes advantage of, and makes more efficient, the public dollars being spent on health care for public-sector employees," Richardson said, adding, "The goal is to create more access to get us to the overall goal of universal health insurance coverage" (Albuquerque Journal, 11/24).