Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

New Mexico has the second-highest rate of uninsured individuals in the country, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is already helping many of them gain access to meaningful coverage.   Thanks to the ACA, New Mexico has already begun helping individuals and families access health insurance by:

• $35.2 million to implement a state-wide insurance exchange to provide New Mexicans with a way to purchase basic, affordable health coverage
• $47.6 million to create new health center sites in medically underserved parts of the state and to expand existing centers to increase the number of patients served
• $3.5 million for school-based health centers, to expand services to New Mexico's students

And for too long, simply having health insurance did not always mean you had adequate protection or enough insurance to cover your health needs.  Individuals could be kicked off their health insurance just when they needed it the most—after they got sick or had passed an arbitrary limit for yearly or lifetime coverage.  Some people and families were unable to gain access to health insurance because of a pre-existing condition like a child's asthma or earlier battle with cancer.

The Affordable Care Act is changing all that, too.  Already, children cannot be denied insurance coverage because of a pre-existing condition, a provision that has affected 122,000 children in our state and will extend to everyone by 2014.  The law bans insurance companies from imposing lifetime dollar-limits on health benefits, too—freeing 555,000 New Mexicans from worrying about whether their cancer treatments or management of chronic disease will bar them from health care in the future.  This provision will expand to restrict annual dollar-limits in 2014.

The law also mandates that insurance companies must spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on health care and quality improvement -- not overhead, executive salaries, or marketing.  And for the first time, insurance companies must publicly justify raising rates by 10 percent or more.  Separately, New Mexico has already received $4 million under ACA to help New Mexicans fight unreasonable premium increases, helping with the assistance and resources individuals and families need to hold insurers responsible and make sure they deliver on their promises.

As the ACA is fully implemented, more protections will go into place to help the underinsured and the uninsured to gain access basic, affordable, meaningful coverage.  Check back often to see how.