State seeks diverse members for new Medicaid Council
(Getty Images)
New Mexico's Health Care Authority on Friday put out a call for members for a new 15-member Beneficiary Advisory Council for New Mexico Medicaid, launching July 1. Applicants should be current or former Medicaid recipients, or parents, guardians or caregivers for Medicaid participants.
An HCA news release said the Council should 'reflect the diverse Medicaid population' in New Mexico and specifically encouraged applications from:
People of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds
Non-native English speakers
LGBTQ+ individuals
Parents of young children
Young adults
People with disabilities
Individuals with behavioral health conditions
Urban, rural, and frontier residents
Members from Tribes, Pueblos, and Nations
Dual-eligible members (enrolled in both Medicaid and Medicare)
'Medicaid serves more than 800,00 New Mexicans with critical health care services, and no one understands its strengths and challenges better than the people who rely on it every day,' New Mexico Medicaid Director Dana Flannery said in a statement. 'This council will help ensure that the program reflects the real experiences and needs of New Mexicans.'
Council members, who will attend quarterly meetings either in person at the HCA office in Santa Fe or online from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. will provide feedback on topics such as:
medicaid programs, policies, and services
barriers to care and suggest practical improvements
initiatives to increase access, quality, and equity
They will also serve as liaisons between Medicaid members and leadership, according to the news release. Applicants who are chosen will be notified by June 30. Learn more and apply here.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘Expensive and complicated': Most rural hospitals no longer deliver babies
A mother prepares her infant son for bed. Since 2020, 36 states have lost at least one rural labor and delivery department. In rural counties, the loss of hospital-based obstetric care is associated with increases in births in hospital emergency rooms, less prenatal care and higher rates of babies being born too early. (Photo by) Nine months after Monroe County Hospital in rural South Alabama closed its labor and delivery department in October 2023, Grove Hill Memorial Hospital in neighboring Clarke County also stopped delivering babies. Both hospitals are located in an agricultural swath of the state that's home to most of its poorest counties. Many residents of the region don't even have a nearby emergency department. Stacey Gilchrist is a nurse and administrator who's spent her 40-year career in Thomasville, a small town about 20 minutes north of Grove Hill. Thomasville's hospital shut down entirely last September over financial difficulties. Thomasville Regional hadn't had a labor and delivery unit for years, but women in labor still showed up at its ER when they knew they wouldn't make it to the nearest delivering hospital. 'We had several close calls where people could not make it even to Grove Hill when they were delivering there,' Gilchrist told Stateline shortly after the Thomasville hospital closed. She recalled how Thomasville nurses worked to save the lives of a mother and baby who'd delivered early in their ER, as staff waited for neonatal specialists to arrive by ambulance from a distant delivering hospital. 'It would give you chills to see what all they had to do. They had to get inventive,' she said, but the mother and baby survived. Now many families must drive more than an hour to reach the nearest birthing hospital. Nationwide, most rural hospitals no longer offer obstetric services. Since the end of 2020, more than 100 rural hospitals have stopped delivering babies, according to a new report from the Center for Healthcare Quality & Payment Reform, a national policy center focused on solving health care issues through overhauling insurance payments. Fewer than 1,000 rural hospitals nationwide still have labor and delivery services. A small town tries to revive its hospital in the middle of a rural health crisis Across the nation, two rural labor and delivery departments shut their doors every month on average, said Harold Miller, the center's president and CEO. 'It's the perfect storm,' Miller told Stateline. 'The number of births are going down, everything is more expensive in rural areas, health insurance plans don't cover the cost of births, and hospitals don't have the resources to offset those losses because they're losing money on other services, too.' Staffing shortages, low Medicaid reimbursement payments and declining birth rates have contributed to the closures. Some states have responded by changing how Medicaid funds are spent, by allowing the opening of freestanding birth centers, or by encouraging urban-based obstetricians to open satellite clinics in rural areas. Yet the losses continue. Thirty-six states have lost at least one rural labor and delivery unit since the end of 2020, according to the report. Sixteen have lost three or more. Indiana has lost 12, accounting for a third of its rural hospital labor and delivery units. In rural counties the loss of hospital-based obstetric care is associated with increases in births in hospital emergency rooms, studies have found. The share of women without adequate prenatal care also increases in rural counties that lose hospital obstetric services. And researchers have seen an increase in preterm births — when a baby is born three or more weeks early — following rural labor and delivery closures. Babies born too early have higher rates of death and disability. The decline in hospital-based maternity care has been decades in the making. Traditionally, hospitals lose money on obstetrics. It costs more to maintain a labor and delivery department than a hospital gets paid by insurance to deliver a baby. This is especially true for rural hospitals, which see fewer births and therefore less revenue than urban areas. 'It is expensive and complicated for any hospital to have labor and delivery because it's a 24/7 service,' said Miller. A labor and delivery unit must always have certain staff available or on call, including a physician who can perform cesarean sections, nurses with obstetric training, and an anesthetist for C-sections and labor pain management. You can't subsidize a losing service when you don't have profit coming in from other services. – Harold Miller, president and CEO of the Center for Healthcare Quality & Payment Reform 'There's a minimum fixed cost you incur [as a hospital] to have all of that, regardless of how many births there are,' Miller said. In most cases, insurers don't pay hospitals to maintain that standby capacity; they're paid per birth. Hospitals cover their losses on obstetrics with revenue they get from more lucrative services. For a larger urban hospital with thousands of births a year, the fixed costs might be manageable. For smaller rural hospitals, they're much harder to justify. Some have had to jettison their obstetric services just to keep the doors open. 'You can't subsidize a losing service when you don't have profit coming in from other services,' Miller said. And staffing is a persistent problem. Harrison County Hospital in Corydon, Indiana, a small town on the border with Kentucky, ended its obstetric services in March after hospital leaders said they were unable to recruit an obstetric provider. It was the only delivering hospital in the county, averaging about 400 births a year. And most providers don't want to remain on call 24/7, a particular problem in rural regions that might have just one or two physicians trained in obstetrics. In many rural areas, family physicians with obstetrical training fill the role of both obstetricians and general practitioners. Even before Harrison County Hospital suspended its obstetrical services, some patients were already driving more than 30 minutes for care, the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported. The closure means the drive could be 50 minutes to reach a hospital with a labor and delivery department, or to see providers for prenatal visits. A fifth of Americans are on Medicaid. Some of them have no idea. Longer drive times can be risky, resulting in more scheduled inductions and C-sections because families are scared to risk going into labor naturally and then facing a harrowing hourlong drive to the hospital. Having fewer labor and delivery units could further burden ambulance services already stretched thin in rural areas. And hospitals often serve as a hub for other maternity-related services that help keep mothers and babies healthy. 'Other things we've seen in rural counties that have hospital-based OB care is that you're more likely to have other supportive things, like maternal mental health support, postpartum groups, lactation support, access to doula care and midwifery services,' said Katy Kozhimannil, a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, whose research focuses in part on maternal health policy with a focus on rural communities. Medicaid, the state-federal public insurance for people with low incomes, pays for nearly half of all births in rural areas nationwide. And women who live in rural communities and small towns are more likely to be covered by Medicaid than women in metro areas. Experts say one way to save rural labor and delivery in many places would be to bump up Medicaid payments. As congressional Republicans debate President Donald Trump's tax and spending plan, they're considering which portions of Medicaid to slash to help pay for the bill's tax cuts. Maternity services aren't on the chopping block. But if Congress reduces federal funding for some portions of Medicaid, states — and hospitals — will have to figure out how to offset that loss. The ripple effects could translate into less money for rural hospitals overall, meaning some may no longer be able to afford labor and delivery services. Abortion-ban states pour millions into pregnancy centers with little medical care 'Cuts to Medicaid are going to be felt disproportionately in rural areas where Medicaid makes up a higher proportion of labor and delivery and for services in general,' Kozhimannil said. 'It is a hugely important payer at rural hospitals, and for birth in particular.' And though private insurers often pay more than Medicaid for birth services, Miller believes states shouldn't let companies off the hook. 'The data shows that in many cases, commercial insurance plans operating in a state are not paying adequately for labor and delivery,' Miller said. 'Hospitals will tell you it's not just Medicaid; it's also commercial insurance.' He'd like to see state insurance regulators pressure private insurance to pay more. More than 40% of births in rural communities are covered by private insurance. Yet there's no one magic bullet that will fix every rural hospital's bottom line, Miller said: 'For every hospital I've talked to, it's been a different set of circumstances.' Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@ SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Cuts to Medicaid for Ohioans with disabilities could take away home care and job help
(iStock / Getty Images Plus) As the Ohio Senate moves forward with its budget proposal, advocates for Medicaid are hoping changes can be made to avoid significant impacts to low income residents, elderly Ohioans, and people with disabilities. Funding from Medicaid allows 3 million Ohioans access to health care services, including more than 770,000 who receive them through the Medicaid expansion program instituted in 2014. That expansion program allows people who weren't eligible for the traditional Medicaid programs but were still in categories of need to access health care. The existence of that program dropped the uninsured rate in Ohio to historic levels, according to the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. Along with health care, Medicaid dollars help with services that aren't necessarily connected to medical treatment, like home care, employment help, transportation, and a direct care provider who helps with all of those things. 'In many cases, if there wasn't Medicaid dollars behind it, I know of many people whose ability to live outside of a hospital or in the community would be threatened,' said Jules Patalita, a disability rights advocate for Sylvania-based The Ability Center. So advocates were disappointed to see the Ohio Senate maintain a provision from both the Ohio House's and Gov. Mike DeWine's budget proposals that would eliminate the Medicaid expansion group if the federal government reduces their level of support (currently at 90%) by even 1%. 'This would be a substantial loss for many working Ohioans,' said Kathryn Poe, researcher for the think tank Policy Matters Ohio. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Also included in the Senate's budget proposal is the elimination of a Medicaid waiver that 'would have provided continuous coverage for kids up to age 3,' Poe said, and a separate section of the budget that would 'allow the state to pause, eliminate or change other funds related to all other federal grants, should Congress adjust or eliminate funding for that program.' Poe did praise the Senate proposal for removing a House-submitted provision limiting Medicaid reimbursement for doulas to only six Ohio counties. 'This will ensure that Ohio parents continue to have access to culturally appropriate birthing resources and management,' Poe said. Concerns about loss of access don't just extend to physical health concerns or daily home services, but also to behavioral health services, on which 47% of Ohio adults on Medicaid rely, according to Kerstin Sjoberg, president and CEO of Disability Rights Ohio. 'If you don't have access to some sort of insurance like Medicaid, it's going to be almost impossible to get those services,' Sjoberg said. The state-level discussions come as federal budget reconciliation also touches on Medicaid funding as the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress attempt to slash federal spending by $880 billion over the next decade, particularly from public assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and other leaders have talked about 'abuse' or 'fraud' as sources of revenue loss for the country in public programs, something those who engage with users of programs like Medicaid push back on. 'In reality, Medicaid is one of the most cost-effective and widely used safety nets in the country,' said the advocacy group Innovation Ohio in a call-to-action email over the congressional budget proposals. 'If this bill becomes law, the result will be fewer people with health care, more families pushed into poverty and deeper inequality. Rural hospitals could shut down.' According to a study by the Commonwealth Fund, Ohio could be one of the hardest hit economies if Medicaid cuts at the federal level come to fruition, cuts that could mean 29% more Medicaid spending by states or cuts to other programs, like education, to offset the Medicaid losses. One thing that will have to be addressed whether or not the cuts are realized in the state and federal budgets is the workforce that helps those who use Medicaid for home care and other services. Patalita said the word 'crisis' has been used in talking about the shortage of direct care providers, similar to the shortage of child care workers needed to provide adequate access to that service. 'We've talked to people who have had to wait weeks to be able to receive services in the home, because there just aren't enough providers out there,' Patalita said. The Ability Center did a study after the previous state budget increased the reimbursement rate for direct care providers under the state Medicaid program. That study showed that while reimbursements rates and, for that matter, provider wages should go up, the solution to the shortage problem wouldn't come with just one answer. 'The direct care crisis is too complex of an issue for a single action to remedy,' The Ability Center found. The study identified three 'major elements' of the shortage: high turnover rates, low hourly wages (lower than 'many entry level positions in retail and food service,' according to the study), and a lack of consistency in benefits. 'This failure by agencies to provide benefits adds to the worker shortage and forces those requiring home care to carry the burden of decreased access to care, especially those in rural areas,' the study found. Eliminating Medicaid funding, including the expansion group, will make life harder for those Ohioans who need the services, Sjoberg said, 'but it will also make it necessary that the direct care workforce is supported in other ways.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE


Newsweek
43 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Three States Ban Junk Food From SNAP Benefits: What to Know
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Junk food purchases using SNAP benefits have been banned in three more states, taking the national total to six. Arkansas, Idaho and Utah have all had waivers approved that will ban unhealthy purchases from being made using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced on Tuesday. They join three states who had their waiver requests approved in May: Indiana, Iowa and Nebraska. Why It Matters Across Arkansas, Idaho and Utah, about 540,000 people collect SNAP benefits to help them pay for groceries. Several other Republican states are considering limitations on what SNAP recipients can buy using their benefits as part of the Make America Healthy Again movement. What To Know A waiver grants flexibility by modifying specific USDA program rules, enabling states to administer the SNAP program in different ways. Various states currently have SNAP waivers in place, and they were widely implemented during the coronavirus pandemic to enhance access to food benefits. According to the USDA press release, each waiver will come into force in 2026. In Arkansas and Idaho, the ban covers soft drinks and candy purchases. In Utah, the ban is only for soft drinks. Stock image/file photo: A woman looks at shelves stocked with soft drinks in a grocery store. Stock image/file photo: A woman looks at shelves stocked with soft drinks in a grocery store. GETTY Governors have cited concerns over obesity and the pressure poor health puts on other taxpayer-funded programs like Medicaid. According to Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, 23 percent of food stamps—$27 billion annually—spent by recipients goes toward soft drinks, unhealthy snacks, candy and desserts. Critics of the purchase limitations have said such policies are paternalistic and fail to address the fact that many low-income communities face disparities in accessing healthy, affordable food options. What People Are Saying Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a statement sent to Newsweek: "States have always been the greatest laboratories of democracy, and I am confident the best ideas will come from them. Whether demonstration pilots on allowable purchases, or newfound ways to connect work-capable adults to jobs, or even new ways to get food to communities, I will continue to encourage states to be bold and enact change." Idaho Governor Brad Little: "Idaho proudly welcomes the MAHA movement because it is all about looking for new ways to improve nutrition, increase exercise, and take better care of ourselves and one another, especially our children. We are excited to partner with the Trump administration in bringing common sense to the government's food assistance program with the approval of our SNAP waiver." Kavelle Christie, a health policy and advocacy expert, told Newsweek: "The issue isn't about individuals misusing their benefits, but their limited choices. In many rural areas and food deserts, convenience stores and fast-food chains are often the only available options. For many families, fresh produce and healthy meals are luxuries that are unattainable, not because they do not want these foods, but because they are unavailable or too expensive." Valerie Imbruce, director of the Center for Environment and Society at Washington College, previously told Newsweek: "Controlling how the poor eat is a paternalistic response to a problem that is not based in SNAP recipients' inability to make good decisions about healthy foods, it is a problem of the price differential in choosing healthy or junk foods. Soda and candy are much cheaper and more calorie dense than 100 percent fruit juices or prebiotic non-artificially sweetened carbonated beverages, thanks to price supports and subsidies by the federal government to support a U.S. sugar industry." What Happens Next Lawmakers in several other states—Arizona, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, Texas, and West Virginia—are all considering making similar bans. Some have submitted waiver requests to the USDA while others are considering bills.