Mother, health providers, lawmakers sound alarm over proposed Medicaid cuts

Yahoo

28-02-2025

U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez was flanked by health care workers and constituents during a news conference at El Centro Family Health on Feb. 28, 2025. (Photo by Austin Fisher / Source NM)
Vanessa Herrera saw the first sign of a problem with her son Alex when he was one years old. She was changing him and noticed a large bump and bruise on his chest.
Alex's grandmother had been watching him and, when Herrera asked what had happened, she said he hadn't fallen or gotten hurt. They took Alex to the hospital near their home in Arroyo Seco, a small town in Taos County in Northern New Mexico.
When medical workers tried to draw blood from his arm, it swelled. The next day, they went to the Taos Clinic For Children & Youth, where the doctor, who has hemophilia herself, recognized Alex's condition.
She sent them to the University of New Mexico Hospital two-and-a-half hours south in Albuquerque, where they were able to test Alex's blood and confirm the rare bleeding disorder that prevents the blood from clotting and can be life-threatening.
Herrera, a single working mother of three, shared how Medicaid cuts would affect her son and other families at a Friday news conference hosted at another clinic in Northern New Mexico and organized by U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, a Democrat for the largely Northern New Mexico 3rd Congressional District where Herrera resides.
Medicaid is the jointly run state-federal health insurance program for the very poor. Approximately 47% of El Centro's patients receive their health insurance through Medicaid, Leger Fernández said.
New Mexico overall has the highest proportion of residents on Medicaid of any state in the U.S., with 34.3% of its citizens enrolled in the program, according to the non-partisan health policy research organization KFF.
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The U.S. House GOP's budget resolution, which President Donald Trump has endorsed, calls for the federal House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the Medicaid and Medicare health programs, to find at least $880 billion in cost savings to aid Republicans in paying for other parts of the bill.
'What Republicans are doing is they're gutting these programs, they're taking programs away from people, all so that they can give tax breaks to the most wealthy in the country,' U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) said at the news conference. 'This is going to be the tax scam from President Trump 2.0.'
Leger Fernández said she wants Donald Trump and her Republican colleagues in Congress to see the pain they would cause if they go through with their proposed cuts.
'This is not a Republican or a Democrat issue,' Leger Fernández said. 'It is an issue of keeping our population safe and doing it in an incredibly cost effective manner.'
Herrera noted that losing Medicaid would also affect millions of other disabled children in the U.S. She said she hopes sharing her story will prevent the cuts, 'to help our children and our seniors.'
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Earlier on Friday, Leger Fernández toured El Centro Family Health, which would be devastated by any Medicaid cuts, according to its Clinical Director Dr. Leslie Hayes.
The health center has been running for half a century and is located in a Rio Arriba County building overlooking the city of Española. Hayes, who has worked at the clinic for 30 years, introduced Leger Fernández to the physicians, nurses and staff who care for patients and coordinate their care elsewhere.
Hayes said without Medicaid, New Mexico's working poor would not get health insurance, and when people don't get the treatment they need, they die of preventable causes. Her clinic provides treatment for people who would otherwise not be seen for diabetes, opioid use disorder and prenatal care.
'We are the last resort for a lot of our communities,' Hayes said. 'When I hear about them wanting to cut some of this stuff — you're not going to save money doing this.'
For example, insurance companies decided they would cover opioid use disorder because patients who go untreated will cost more in emergency room visits for overdoses, abcesses and other complications, she said.
El Centro runs 24 clinics across 22,000 square miles in Northern New Mexico, including medical and dental clinics and school-based health centers, said El Centro CEO Darren DeYapp.
If Medicaid cuts become reality, some of those clinics may have to reduce their working hours, or even close, 'then there's no going back,' DeYapp said.
'Medicaid covers the most vulnerable population so the chances of people seeking care are pretty much null and void,' he said.
Lovelace Health System Chief Medical Officer Dr. Vesta Sandoval said cuts to Medicaid would have 'devastating' effects on New Mexico's entire health care system, including routine primary care and vaccinations.
She said in the state's more rural areas, 50% of children are on Medicaid. New Mexico's maternal mortality rate is already too high and cutting Medicaid would make it even worse.
'If they start making these cuts you can expect people are going to be unable to get into hospitals, unable to see primary care physicians, unable to have OB physicians taking care of them, and we're going to see increased damage to New Mexico patients, because Medicaid protects our system, it stabilizes our system, and it protects our patients,' Sandoval said.
New Mexico's urban hospitals are already over capacity, Sandoval added, and cuts to Medicaid could mean that smaller clinics would have to reduce services or working hours, and hospitals in rural areas would have to close.
As for Herrera's son, Alex is now 6 years old, and the medication he takes has changed his life and his mother's, she said. Medicaid has also helped cover the cost of traveling to and from Albuquerque, she said.
Every week for the past five years, Herrera has administered a clotting factor called Idelvion through a port in Alex's upper chest. Each dose costs more than $13,000, translating to an annual cost of more than $753,000, according to the nonprofit Institute for Clinical and Economic Review.
'Without Medicaid, we would not have been able to afford it,' she said. 'We are scared to lose it, because I don't want to lose my son. I couldn't imagine losing him.'
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