New Mexico health insurance rates among the nation’s steepest hikes next year - Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexicans will face some of the highest Affordable Care Act rate increases in the country next year, when the cost of some plans will spike by as much as 52.2%, according to the state Office of the Superintendent of Insurance.
The average price increase for individual plans sold through BeWell, New Mexico’s health insurance marketplace, will be 35.7%, the OSI said — the fourth-highest average ACA rate increase of any state in the nation, according to a Journal analysis of marketplace data compiled by health policy nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.
The agency said in a news release the price hikes were caused by increased medical and prescription drug costs, high demand for health care services, and the expiration of Biden-era enhanced ACA tax credits that Congress chose not to renew.
“This is very unfortunate, and it’s going to impact every New Mexican,” said the director of OSI’s life and health insurance division, Viara Ianakieva. “This is impacting everyone, all Americans across the country.”
Ianakieva said while multiple factors could have contributed to the rate surges — rising costs, post-pandemic instability, cybersecurity attacks on insurers, Medicaid redeterminations — the major driver in New Mexico was that insurance companies’ actual expenses last year ended up being much higher than initially predicted.
“Uncertainty impacts the market, and this year we have had a lot of uncertainty,” she said.
United Healthcare of New Mexico is raising its prices the most of any of the state’s ACA insurers — its rates will go up 52.2%, affecting 12,325 people, the company said in a report to the state. United’s New Mexico rate hikes are in the top five highest increases of any ACA marketplace plan nationwide, according to KFF data.
Ianakieva attributes United’s major rate hikes to its relatively new status on the state’s health care marketplace, where New Mexicans can buy insurance via the ACA if they don’t qualify for Medicare or Medicaid and don’t have coverage through their jobs.
“This was the first year when they had actual experience which they could look back and make assumptions based on,” she said. “This is when they actually saw that the expenses were a lot higher than assumed, and they had to adjust their rates accordingly.”
BlueCross BlueShield of New Mexico will raise its rates by 38.6%, Presbyterian Health Plan by 27.1%, and Molina Healthcare of New Mexico by 15.3%, according to OSI reports.
“The team has worked really, really, really hard to ensure that rates are as low as possible without compromising the solvency of the insurance companies,” Ianakieva said.
OSI officials said 75,000 New Mexicans buy health insurance through the BeWell marketplace, and 88% of them qualify for federal and state premium assistance. More than half of New Mexico’s ACA enrollees pay less than $10 a month for health coverage with help from subsidies from the federal and state government, the agency said.
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, authorized under former President Joe Biden, made ACA tax credits available for more households, cheapening marketplace health care premiums. Enrollment in ACA plans more than doubled in the four years since the tax credits were introduced, according to data from KFF.
The tax credits are set to expire at the end of 2025, unless the Republican-controlled Congress opts to renew them.
On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters for The Hill there was “a lot of opposition” to renewing the tax credits.
“I’m not going to forecast that right now,” Johnson said.
“Fortunately,” Superintendent of Insurance Alice Kane said in a statement, the state “had the foresight” to prepare for the loss of federal premium subsidies, and will use New Mexico’s Health Care Affordability Fund to cover the loss for households with income under 400% of the federal poverty level.
For a single person, this means anyone making less than $62,600 annually, or less than $128,600 for a family of four. Households making more than the 400% threshold are not eligible for state subsidies.
Even with the help of state funds, New Mexicans will see “significant rate increases,” Ianakieva said, which will depend on a policyholder’s age, location and plan.
Rural areas will bear the brunt of the price hikes, she said — policies will end up more expensive because of fewer providers and poorer access to health care.
“The loss of funding from the federal government is a real hardship for New Mexico,” said Mary Feldblum, executive director of the Health Security for New Mexicans Campaign, a health care reform advocacy group.
When people lose their insurance, it ultimately costs the government more money, Feldblum said, because people tend to delay care until their condition is much more serious, and the state foots the bill.
“It’s just good policy to have people insured,” she said.
New Mexico border officials say New World screwworm outbreak hitting state hard - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Even though about one-third of all cattle the United States imports from Mexico come through New Mexico ports of entry, investments and planning about how to stop an ongoing screwworm outbreak are happening outside of the state.
That’s according to officials with the New Mexico Border Authority, who provided an interim legislative committee Tuesday afternoon with an update on the New World screwworm infestation. Concerns about the outbreak prompted the U.S. Department of Agriculture in July to halt cattle imports from Mexico.
The prohibition on cattle imports meant a halt to a $1.3 billion industry, according to authority officials, and is hitting the Columbus, N.M. port of entry particularly hard. Mexican cattle growers ship approximately 300,000 cattle through Columbus and Santa Teresa ports of entry each year, according to the authority.
Authorities see no immediate end in sight for the outbreak, according to Gerardo Fierro, the authority’s director, and Joseph de la Rosa, the authority’s board’s chair. The onus falls on Mexican animal welfare authorities to slow northward advancement of the infestation, Fierro said, to the USDA’s satisfaction.
The movement of the parasitic fly, previously eradicated from the U.S. for the last several decades, has disrupted international cattle trade through New Mexico, Arizona and Texas in the last several months. The screwworm’s name references the maggot’s behavior of burrowing into the flesh of a living animal, sometimes causing serious or fatal damage to livestock, wildlife and pets.
In late August, the USDA awarded $750 million to a lab in Edinburg, Texas, to produce about 300 million sterile screwworm flies per week. USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins stood alongside Texas Gov. Greg Abbott at a news conference, at which she said that the infestation “endangers our livestock industry and it threatens the stability of beef prices for consumers across America,” according to the Texas Tribune.
De la Rosa pointed to the new facility being built in Texas as an example of a missed opportunity for New Mexico. He said it’s another example of why the New Mexico Legislature needs to increase its funding for New Mexico border infrastructure.
“New Mexico was not even part of the conversation for that; we have the largest cattle crossing along the US-Mexico border; the cattle industry is important here,” he said. “But because of our lack of infrastructure and our lack of development along the border, we weren’t even, you know, in that conversation.”
The authority, which seeks to spur development at the state’s four international ports of entry, currently has a flat operating budget of about $577,000, de la Rosa said, though he and Fierro listed some multi-million-dollar capital projects they’re hoping the Legislature will fund.
Between 2023 and 2024, the total value of all goods imported or exported across the Columbus and Santa Teresa ports of entry grew from about $28.3 billion to about $40.4 billion, according to Fierro’s presentation. The vast majority of that occurred at Santa Teresa, according to Fierro.
Even with the decrease in cattle imports, which Fierro said he’s still trying to quantify, the ports are still among the fastest-growing in the country and competitive with ports in El Paso.
Air race championship takes flight in New Mexico's Roswell - By Morgan Lee, Associated Press
Fans of head-to-head airplane races at screaming speeds are traveling to unfamiliar skies as a premiere national competition debuts in New Mexico for the first time in its 60-year history.
The five-day National Championship Air Races runs through Sunday at a commercial airfield and former Air Force base outside Roswell. It's a remote oil production region that's also famous for supposed sightings of unidentified flying objects — called unidentified anomalous phenomena by the government — and speculation about extraterrestrials.
Most of the competitions take place within 250 feet (76 meters) of the ground — but not below 50 feet (15 meters) — as pilots defy gravity to circle a course marked by vintage pylons topped with brightly adorned barrels.
Competitors will be piloting self-constructed Formula 1 prop racers, brightly painted aerobatic biplanes, and even jets capable of exceeding 500 miles per hour (804 kilometers per hour).
"It's up to eight planes in the sky together at the same time racing against each other, not against a clock, and there's just nowhere else in the world you can see it like this," said Tony Logoteta, president of the Reno Air Racing Association that now runs the Roswell races.
The competition left Nevada behind as homes and businesses gradually hemmed in space for racing, amplifying safety concerns on the ground. The Reno Air Racing Association took a year off to launch the Roswell Air Races.
What's new?
Organizers hope to attract new fans from neighboring Texas and log between 30,000 and 40,000 unique visitors this year. Tens of thousands of tickets were sold before opening day and Roswell's hotel rooms were tapped out.
In its final decade in Reno, the event attracted more than 1 million visitors and generated more than $750 million for the economy, according to the association.
New Mexico is investing millions of dollars in Roswell Air Center improvements, including grandstands that will hold up to 9,500 when completed.
Cities in six states bid to host the races, which require open land, suitable runways, ramp and hangar space, security facilities, amenities for spectators and more.
Organizers say the Roswell Air Center gives the event room to grow and an uninterrupted view of the course and planes against an ordinarily clear desert sky.
Race finals were set for Sunday. Companion air shows were expected to feature military and vintage planes, and acrobatics displays.
Racing since 1964
The national championship's only gap years have been due to the Sept. 11 attacks, the COVID-19 pandemic and the move to Roswell.
Races by World War II-era fighter aircraft are a perennial favorite among fans, but won't take place this year after those participants withdrew for unspecified reasons.
Even so, the event's new home is steeped in military aviation. The region has three Air Force bases, White Sands Missile Range and Army installations at Fort Bliss.
Ensuring safety
Two vintage planes fatally collided on the final day of the 2023 national championships at the Reno-Stead Airport.
That crash raised the tally of pilots or performers killed in the races to 24. The deadliest day was in 2011, when 10 spectators died in a crash on the edge of the grandstand — the one fatal crash involving spectators.
Organizers say the new location has some inherent safety advantages. The races, accredited by the Federal Aviation Administration, require pilots to attend mandatory training and testing. Spectators are seated along straightaways, farther from hazards of race course turns, Logoteta said.
The course also is far from any neighborhoods at a remote commercial aviation station that spans 80 square miles (207 square kilometers). It was the home of Walker Air Force Base before its closure in 1967.
Fire, rescue and law enforcement agencies are closely involved.
"Safety is always No. 1," Logoteta said. "And at the same time, we also recognize that there is inherent risk in any motorsport to the participants."
Crash investigation
Investigators last week released their conclusion into the 2023 crash, finding that two experienced pilots deviated from their expected flight paths and never saw each other before colliding.
While the list of crashes involving vintage planes used or designed for military purposes is long, aviation industry experts said in the days after the 2023 crash that they were dumbfounded that such experienced pilots ended up colliding.
The National Transportation Safety Board report said both pilots failed to fly the standard routes, with one pilot taking a wide turn and the other taking a tighter approach.
New Mexico Environment Department approves LANL plan to vent radioactive gas - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
New Mexico environment officials on Monday gave permission for Los Alamos National Laboratory to vent a radioactive gas within the next six months.
The decision came on the heels of federal officials urging the state in a recent letter to make a decision, and pushback from anti-nuclear and Indigenous groups about the proposal.
Specifically, LANL aims to vent four waste containers filled with tritium and hazardous waste that it packed in 2007 and left at the lab’s disposal site, called Area G. In 2016, LANL officials discovered the drums were building pressure and could potentially explode. In a worst-case scenario modeled for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — which the lab said was unlikely — a rupture of all four containers could expose people to a dosage of 20 millirem, double the airborne radiation limit that LANL is allowed to release for all operations for a whole year.
Tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, can be naturally occurring or a byproduct from nuclear research. The EPA characterizes the gas as a lower threat, emitting radiation that often cannot penetrate the skin, and is only considered hazardous in large quantities from inhalation, skin absorption or consumed in tritiated water – a replacement of one of the hydrogen molecules with tritium.
Rick Shean, Resource Protection Division director for the New Mexico Environment Department, told Source NM that state officials and U.S. Environmental and Protection Agency officials will be onsite during the planned venting across 12 to 16 days during weekends.
“We will be there, us and the EPA, [so] if something does go wrong, there’s a discussion with [U.S. Department of Energy] that we can observe,” Shean said. “We’ll step in and stop it if we have to.”
Among several provisions in a Sept. 8 letter from the environment department to the National Nuclear Security Administration and the lab’s contractor, environment officials will require LANL to keep the release below 6 millirems as a “hard stop limit,” which is lower than the 8 millirems LANL proposed. Shean noted that a typical release of tritium throughout the year from the lab is between zero to 1.5 milirems.
Indigenous groups including Tewa Women United, Honor our Pueblo Existence and anti-nuclear groups have raised concerns that federal limits for tritium exposure levels of a of 10 millirem were based on men, not pregnant women or young children.
Shean said the department’s mandate takes the concern raised by the groups into consideration.
“We do understand the concern around thresholds being put out there, the standards being based on typically male adults,” he said. “That was one of the reasons guiding our decision to lower the threshold to this event to six milirems.”
In addition to the concerns about exposure levels, anti-nuclear activists and Indigenous groups also recently raised objections about what they described as restrictions on public participation and transparency at a recent meeting on the proposal. The state environment department previously set four conditions for NNSA and Triad to meet for approval, including a public meeting and tribal consultations.
The Sept. 8 letter concludes with an admonishment from state officials, saying the operation is necessary because of LANL’s “failure to properly manage hazardous waste at the time of generation followed by almost a 20-year disregard of compliance obligations under state laws and rules,” the letter said.
In a statement Monday, National Nuclear Security Administration Public Affairs Specialist Toni Chiri said laboratory officials will be in contact with Congressional, state, local and tribal governments to release the dates for the tritium venting expected this fall and will ensure the venting does not overlap with Pueblo Feast days or other events.
“This operation will be conducted with the utmost considerations for safety to LANL employees, the surrounding communities, and the environment,” Chiri said. “LANL engineers have done careful analysis of the controlled depressurization process and will monitor it in real-time to ensure safety.”
Emails requesting comment from the nearby Pueblos of San Ildefonso and Santa Clara went unreturned as of publication.
Joni Ahrends, executive director at Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, called the release a “pattern of practice,” saying that LANL has been contaminating air, land and water in the more than 80 years since the Manhattan Project.
“Who’s going to pay the price? The people of Northern New Mexico,” she said. “And there’s never an answer to the question: ‘when is it going to stop?’”
New Mexico Foundation for Open Government announces Dixon Award recipients - Albuquerque Journal
New Mexicans on the frontlines fighting for open government will be recognized next month.
The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government on Monday announced the recipients of the 2025 Dixon First Amendment Freedom Awards, who will be honored at a banquet on Oct. 2. Proceeds from the luncheon and silent auction at the Sandia Casino Golf Event's Center will benefit NMFOG.
“The Dixon Awards celebrate the vital work of citizens across New Mexico who make sure open and transparent government is more than just lip service,” said Daniel Russell, chair of the Dixon Awards Committee. “Those being honored are among the best at turning that principle into reality — by exercising the rights we all have — and ensuring everyone has access to their government."
This year's Lifetime Achievement Awards will go to the Lang family, of the Albuquerque Journal, and Kathi Bearden, the retired publisher of the Hobbs News-Sun.
The Lang/Pepperday family has owned and published the Journal for the last 99 years. During that time, the Lang family helped found NMFOG, and the Journal and NMFOG have joined forces on numerous lawsuits against public entities that illegally withheld public records.
Bearden was the publisher of the Hobbs News-Sun for more than 20 years. She also served as NMFOG's president several times.
The other Dixon recipients are:
Government category
Katherine Garcia-Gallegos, records custodian and Inspection of Public Records Act manager, city of Santa Fe: Garcia-Gallegos established the Santa Fe's Records Department to put traffic reports online, which accounted for about 80% of the city's public records requests. The move significantly reduced the volumes of requests and eased the workload for the department, making it easier for the public to access records.
Rep. Sarah Silva, D-Las Cruces: The first-year lawmaker introduced a bill requiring lobbyists to disclose the legislation they were paid to influence and who funded those efforts. The bill passed both chambers but was vetoed by the governor. She also introduced a bill protecting journalists from being forced to reveal confidential sources. The measure stalled in committee.
Media category
Diego Lopez, editor, Cibola Citizen: As editor in December 2024, Lopez began a series of articles about the Cibola County Commission, who had nominated a state representative to fill a vacancy in a different district. The nominee planned to give up his current seat and changed his address on his voter registration to become eligible for the vacancy. After the New Mexico Department of Justice confirmed he didn't live in the district, the governor rejected his nomination and someone else was appointed.
Milan Simonich, columnist, Santa Fe New Mexican: After decades of work holding politicians accountable, Simonich is being recognized for spotlighting free speech issues after the University of New Mexico police charged a student group $10,000 to host a controversial speaker. He also covered a meeting during which state senators forced a reporter to leave the public meeting and he reported on settlements the NMDOJ — which enforces IPRA — paid for violating open records laws.
Additional information about the awards and the event is available at nmfog.org.