On January 1, 2018, New Mexico’s new health care transparency website came online! You can check it out at: nmhealthcarecompare.com

This website is the result of a 2015 law based on Think New Mexico’s health care transparency initiative. The website currently includes the average prices paid by Medicaid (which covers about 45% of all New Mexicans and pays for about 72% of births in the state) for nine common non-emergency procedures at each of the state’s 44 hospitals. It also includes quality metrics for the hospitals, such as 30-day readmission rates and patient ratings.

Think New Mexico is now advocating for the next phase for the website: expanding the number of procedures listed on the site and adding the average prices paid by New Mexicans who are covered by individual or employer insurance policies. This will allow New Mexicans with high deductibles to shop around for the highest quality, most affordable health care. Contact your legislators and ask them to support this effort to continue improving the health care transparency website!

Think New Mexico is delighted to welcome our new Business Manager, Susan L. Martin! A graduate of the College of Santa Fe, Susan has extensive business management experience in both the nonprofit and for-profit sector, from a 14-year stint at the Santa Fe Opera to her most recent position at the start-up Deep Web Technologies. In her free time, Susan volunteers with the International Folk Art Market and serves as the Majordomo of the Amy Hetegar Community Garden in Casa Solana. Welcome to the Think New Mexico family, Susan!

Think New Mexico has launched a new initiative to improve the state’s public schools by moving over $100 million from school district central administrative offices to the classrooms where the actual learning takes place. Learn more about this issue and contact your legislators and the governor!

We are delighted to be joined this summer by Shea Fallick, an Albuquerque native who is a senior studying Math and Economics at Emory University; Peyton Lawrenz, who grew up in Santa Fe and is a junior majoring in Politics at Princeton University; Joli McSherry, who lives in Deming and is a senior studying Government and History at New Mexico State University; Abel Romero, who grew up in Rio Communities in rural Valencia County and is now a junior majoring in Political Science and American Studies at Williams College; and Phil Wilkinson, who grew up in Albuquerque and is now graduating from Yale with a degree in History and Global Affairs.

Senator Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces) and Representative Kelly Fajardo (R-Belen) introduced Senate Bill 262 during the 2017 legislative session to create a transparent, merit-based system for funding New Mexico’s essential public infrastructure projects. The bill won the support of a growing coalition of business, labor, and good government groups. After being amended to take a more gradual approach to reform, it passed the Senate 29-10 and the House Appropriations Committee unanimously. Unfortunately it ran out of time awaiting a vote of the full House.

Spending public infrastructure dollars wisely not only ensures that New Mexicans have access to safe roads and clean drinking water, but also creates 2,700 jobs for every $100 million spent – which is especially urgent considering that New Mexico leads the nation in unemployment. Learn more about this initiative and how you can get involved.

Think New Mexico’s bipartisan legislation to increase the accountability of the state lottery and send more lottery dollars to scholarships was introduced during the 2017 legislative session by Representative Jason Harper (R-Rio Rancho) and Representative Javier Martínez (D-Albuquerque). House Bill 250 passed two House committees unanimously, passed the House with only a single dissenting vote, and passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously. Unfortunately, it was never brought up for a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee.

Meanwhile, another bill was pushed by the multinational gaming corporations that contract with the lottery to remove the lottery’s accountability to students and reduce the dollars going to scholarships. Senate Bill 192 would have repealed Think New Mexico’s 2007 reform law requiring the lottery to deliver at least 30% of revenues to the scholarship fund.

Think New Mexico fought Senate Bill 192 at every step of its journey through the legislative process, and the final showdown came late on the final night of the session when the bill was brought up for a vote of the full House. Legislators from both parties spoke out against jeopardizing the lottery scholarship fund, and Representative Harper successfully amended all the provisions of House Bill 250 into Senate Bill 192, which meant that the bill had to go back to the Senate for senators to approve those amendments. The Senate did not bring the bill up for consideration before the session concluded, so the bill was defeated and the scholarship fund will continue to receive the full 30% of lottery revenues going forward.

Learn more about this issue and how you can get involved.

On December 15, 2016, the New Mexico Revenue Stabilization and Tax Committee considered legislation to reimpose the regressive food tax on New Mexico families (see coverage from KRQE News 13 and KOAT News 7). The food tax was presented as one piece of a much larger “tax reform” package aimed at raising revenue for the state. Yet the legislators pushing the food tax never answered one important question: how is it that 34 other states are able to balance their budgets without taxing food?

The tax package including the food tax was introduced as House Bill 412 during the 2017 session, along with several other bills that also proposed taxing food. We worked closely with a diverse coalition of other organizations and succeeded in keeping groceries tax-free for New Mexico families. Learn more about the fight against the food tax and sign up to receive email alerts about it.

Thanks to everyone who wrote a review of Think New Mexico this year on GreatNonprofits.org! We are delighted to be one of 10 New Mexico organizations recognized as a top-rated nonprofit in 2016.

Read all about our latest progress on our efforts to reform how the state funds essential public infrastructure, make health care prices transparent, maximize the amount of lottery revenues going to scholarships and prevent the reimposition of the food tax. Click here to download the annual report.

Think New Mexico recently launched a new initiative to fix the state’s hyper-political process for funding essential infrastructure like roads, bridges, and water systems. Learn more about this issue and how to take action on it!