Blue Cross of NM pulls out of Obamacare exchange

Thousands of New Mexicans will need to shop for new health insurance plans later this year after a decision by Blue Cross Blue Shield to stop offering individual insurance plans through the state health exchange beginning Jan. 1.

Company President Kurt Shipley announced the move Wednesday in a letter to individual customers that was also posted on the insurer’s website, www.bcbsnm.com.

The letter said Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico lost $19.2 million in 2015 on the 35,000 individuals covered by plans they purchased on and off the exchange.

“We were unable to reach an agreement with the Office of Superintendent of Insurance … that would allow us to continue to offer coverage on the state’s health insurance exchange with rates that would be adequate to cover the anticipated needs of our members for the coming year,” Shipley wrote.

Blue Cross will offer a basic-level insurance plan outside the exchange in 2016, which will be available to all consumers at the same rate as in 2015.

Insurers can sell health insurance to individuals off the exchange as long as they comply with the same rules under the Affordable Care Act. But consumers who don’t buy through the exchange are not eligible for premium subsidies.

The ACA subsidizes premiums for consumers who purchase their plans through exchanges, based on income.

Existing policies will remain in force until the end of the year. And the insurer’s small group, large group, commercial, Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug, Medicaid and individual dental plans will not be affected.

Insurance Superintendent John Franchini earlier this month rejected Blue Cross Blue Shield’s request for a rate increase averaging 51.6 percent. Franchini said he was prepared to instead approve a 24 percent increase and was waiting for Blue Cross Blue Shield’s response.

He had approved much smaller rate increases for the other insurance companies that offer plans on the exchange – Presbyterian Health Plan, Molina Healthcare of New Mexico, Christus Health Plan and New Mexico Health Connections.

Those insurers say they are willing to accommodate Blue Cross members who decide to pick their plans. The open enrollment period to purchase plans on the exchange will begin Nov. 1.

“We are extremely disappointed that BCBSNM will not be an option for our customers on the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange in 2016,” Shipley said.

Franchini said Blue Cross could return to the exchange after one year and offer plans for 2017.

Blue Cross actually lost more than the $19.2 million the company cited in the letter Wednesday but received more than $23 million from a pool set up by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to help insurers offset unusually high claims. The pool is financed with mandatory contributions from insurers.

Via: Albuquerque Journal

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'They're not going to get away with this': Anger mounts at EPA over mining spill

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. –  Anger was mounting Monday at the federal Environmental Protection Agency over the massive spill of millions of gallons of toxic sludge from a Colorado gold mine that has already fouled three major waterways and may be three times bigger than originally reported.

An 80-mile length of mustard-colored water -- laden with arsenic, lead, copper, aluminum and cadmium -- is working its way south toward New Mexico and Utah, following Wednesday's accidental release from the Gold King Mine, near Durango, when an EPA cleanup crew destabilized a dam of loose rock lodged in the mine. The crew was supposed to pump out and decontaminate the sludge, but instead released it into tiny Cement Creek. From there, it flowed into the Animas River and made its way into larger tributaries, including the San Juan and Colorado rivers.

“They are not going to get away with this.”

- Russell Begaye, president of the Navajo Nation

"They are not going to get away with this," said Russell Begaye, president of theNavajo Nation, which intends to sue the EPA.

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• Officials trying to contain toxic spill caused by EPA

Visible from the air, the toxic slick prompted EPA Region 8 administrator Shaun McGrath to acknowledge the possibility of long-term damage from toxic metals.

"Sediment does settle," McGrath said. "It settles down to the bottom of the river bed."

McGrath said future runoff from storms will kick that toxic sediment back into the water, which means there will need to be long-term monitoring.

The toxic waste passed through Colorado's San Juan County on Saturday, heading west. People living along the Animas and San Juan rivers were advised to have their water tested before using it for cooking, drinking or bathing. That was expected to cause major problems for farmers and ranchers, who require large quantities of water from the river for their livelihoods.

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New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez inspected the damage in Farmington over the weekend and came away stunned.

"The magnitude of it, you can’t even describe it," she said. "It’s like when I flew over the fires, your mind sees something it’s not ready or adjusted to see."

The EPA and the New Mexico Environment Department plan to test private wells near the Animas to identify metals of concern from the spill. Tests on public drinking water systems are handled by the state environment department, the agencies said.

Begaye said Saturday at a community meeting in Shiprock, N.M., that he intends to take legal action against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the massive release of mine waste into the Animas River near Silverton, Colorado.

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Officials are warning people along the affected rivers to test water before using it for drinking, cooking or bathing. (AP)

"The EPA was right in the middle of the disaster and we intend to make sure the Navajo Nation recovers every dollar it spends cleaning up this mess and every dollar it loses as a result of injuries to our precious Navajo natural resources," Begaye said. "I have instructed Navajo Nation Department of Justice to take immediate action against the EPA to the fullest extent of the law to protect Navajo families and resources."

Begaye said the plume of sludge has made its way into the San Juan River and is wending through the Navajo Nation, the nation's largest Indian reservation. It is expected to reach the heavily used Lake Powell by Wednesday.

David Ostrander, an EPA spokesman, said last week the agency is taking responsibility for the incident.

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The mustard-colored plume stretched 80 miles at one point. (AP)

"We typically respond to emergencies, we don't cause them, but this is just something that happens when we are dealing with mines sometimes," Ostander said.

The infiltration of toxic material is a haunting memory for the Navajos who are still reeling and experiencing the adverse health effects of a uranium waste spill into a river outside of Gallup, N.M., some 36 years ago. On July 16, 1979, a dam failed in a uranium waste pond spilling 1,100 tons of solid radioactive mill waste and approximately 93 million U.S. gallons of acidic and radioactive tailings solution into a nearby river tributary.

There have been claims the amount of radiation released in the Churchrock incident exceeded Three Mile Island.

Via: Fox News

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Toxic mine water accidentally released by EPA in Colorado river flows south

A cloud of orange-brown, toxic mine water and sludge accidentally released by the US Environmental Protection Agency is flowing down the Animas River through the hearts of towns in Colorado and New Mexico, and ultimately toward a lake in a national park.

The water, described as an “unnatural” orange color and loaded with heavy metals, was flowing through a stretch of wilderness as of Friday afternoon from Durango, Colorado toward Farmington, New Mexico. It is flowing toward the western edge of the Navajo Nation and along the Glen Canyon national recreation area in Utah.

The same area of wilderness in Utah contains well-known red rock cliffs and terraces in Utah, such as Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

“It’s awful, it’s awful,” said San Juan County undersheriff Stephen Lowrance. “It’s [a] horrible, horrible accident.”

“It’s, like I said, an orange-ish brown. You wouldn’t want to drink it – that’s for sure,” said Lowrance. Lowrance and another sheriff’s deputy were at the site of the spill almost instantly when an estimated 1m gallons of mine wastewater was released into Cement Creek north of Silverton, Colorado, a tiny town with just more than 600 people.

The huge amount of water nearly flooded Cement Creek as it flowed into the Animus River, after breaking free from a shoddy dam at the Gold King Mine. EPA officials said that a blockage of loose soil and little more was holding in the bright orange wastewater at Gold King, a former gold mine, when water broke loose. An EPA official estimated that 200 gallons of wastewater per minute was still flowing out of the mine as of Friday afternoon.

The EPA was working at the property as part of a plan to remediate the superfund site and stop a longtime flow of acidic, heavy metal-laden wastewater from the nearby Red and Bonita mine, all near the abandoned Gladstone mining town. The work would have installed a bulkhead, or massive plug, at the end of the inactive mining tunnel.

The EPA’s initial tests of the wastewater and sediment in Animus found substances known to be harmful to be human health, including lead, arsenic, cadmium, copper, calcium and other heavy metals “at varying levels,” though at concentrations enough for officials to warn people away from the river. The PH of the water near the mouth of the mine was found to be 4.5,roughly that of beer. Lake water typically ranges from 6.5 to 8.5 on the PH scale.

EPA officials later told reporters that the impact on human and environmental health was not immediately clear, because toxicologists are still analyzing data from water samples.

“First off, I’d like to just say I’m sorry for what’s happened,” David Ostrander, the EPA’s head of emergency management told a standing-room-only crowd in Durango, Colorado Friday afternoon. “This is a huge tragedy, and it’s hard being on the other side of this, in terms of being the one who caused this incident.”

“We usually respond to emergencies, we don’t cause them,” said Ostrander.

The wastewater is the vestige of gold rush mining of more than 100 years ago. Though the mine still has an owner it appears to have been all but abandoned.

As the wastewater moves downstream it will enter the hearts of towns along the way – Silverton, Colorado; Durango, Colorado and Farmington, New Mexico among others. Many of the towns along the way have water-recreation-centric tourism industries. The US Parks Service raves about water recreation activities in Glen Canyon in particular.

As of Friday, people were warned away from the water for an indefinite period of time. Farmers have been asked not to use the water. Durango was using a backup water supply and asking residents to conserve. The Federal Bureau of Reclamation, which manages water supplies in the western United States, has warned strongly against any contact with the water, and is doubling the flow of water from the Navajo dam near the San Juan to try to dilute the toxic waste.

Via: The Guardian

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Fraud crackdown sends illegal immigrant licenses plummeting in NM

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez has tried to repeal the state's policy of issuing driver's licenses to illegals, but has had to settle for cracking down on fraud. (AP)

A crackdown on document fraud has sent the number of driver's licenses issued to illegal aliens in New Mexico plunging by 70 percent, while revealing that the state likely issued tens of thousands of bogus licenses after becoming the first state to adopt the controversial policy a dozen years ago.

Last year, New Mexico issued 4,577 licenses to foreign nationals, down sharply from the 2010 high of about 15,000. Officials in the administration of Gov. Susana Martinez, who opposes the policy but has been unable to get it repealed, say the huge drop came as soon as new procedures were implemented to identify fraudulent documents that had been submitted to obtain licenses.

“While this is encouraging news, Gov. Martinez still sides with an overwhelming majority of New Mexicans who believe we must repeal the dangerous law of giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, which has turned our state into a magnet for criminal activity,” said Mike Lonergan, spokesman for the governor.

“These people enter the country illegally then obtain a driver’s license through fraud and lies.”

- Bill Rehm, New Mexico state lawmaker

New Mexico became the first of 10 states to issue driver's licenses to illegal aliens in 2003, under then-Gov. Bill Richardson, who claimed it would cut down on uninsured drivers in the state. But while the policy's effect on public safety has been inconclusive, critics say it launched a cottage industry for criminals to sell fraudulent documents.

Last year, federal officials broke up a five-year operation -- which extended from New Mexico to New York -- that saw illegal immigrants from Georgia paying as much as $2,000 to obtain documents to secure a New Mexico driver’s license

Via: Fox News

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[COMMENTARY] Obamacare wins one, America loses

The Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday in King v. Burwell has temporarily saved the Affordable Care Act, but millions of Americans are still hurting under Obamacare. The high court’s six-justice majority agreed that the IRS can change the wording of the law to the administration’s liking. No one, however, can change that Obamacare is an expensive failure — unpopular, unworkable and unaffordable.

Obamacare enrollees are facing double-digit premium increases, the opposite of what they were promised. The president’s health-care law was supposed to “bend the cost curve” — and it has, in the wrong direction. Obamacare piled mandates on the insurance industry while drastically increasing uncertainty in the market. Early on, insurers were working with incomplete data when setting rates. They didn’t know how sick or expensive their millions of new enrollees would be. Now they have a better idea and are proposing enormous rate hikes — 30 percent or more in states such as in Maryland, Tennessee and New Mexico.

Dr. John Barrasso, a Republican, represents Wyoming in the U.S. Senate. He is an orthopedic surgeon and former chief of staff at the Wyoming Medical Center.

The president has two options: He can ignore these staggering numbers and let the Obamacare juggernaut roll forward. Or he can sit down with Republicans and find ways to offer relief to hardworking Americans.

President Obama should welcome a full airing of ideas. The health care law still lacks the support of most Americans. A June 8 poll by the Washington Post and ABC News put support for Obamacare at 39 percent and opposition at 54 percent. Is it any wonder? The bill was written behind closed doors, with no real discussion of opposing views, and passed on a party-line vote. The plan was far too complicated, with too many mandates and penalties. It was never designed to increase choice and lower prices. The subsidies to buy insurance served only to hide the true costs.

One of the main arguments the law’s defenders made in King v. Burwell was that if the subsidies at issue were struck down, another 6 million Americans would find health care too expensive. In other words, they cannot afford insurance without government help. That is a clear sign that the law has failed to rein in costs and should be replaced.

It’s time for the president to focus on addressing the real problems with this law. Republicans have good ideas about how to lower costs, improve access and help Americans lead healthier lives.

Via: Palm Beach Post

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Texas Spending $800M to Create Its Own Virtual Border Patrol

When former Gov. Rick Perry ordered a big reinforcement of security at the Mexico border in 2011, Texas bought six new gunboats that can fire 900 rounds a minute and clock highway speeds. But the boats, which cost $580,000 each, spent more time docked than patrolling the Rio Grande.

That was a small price tag compared with what Texas is about to spend. The new Republican governor, Greg Abbott, this month approved $800 million for border security over the next two years — more than double any similar period during Perry's 14 years in office.

On Texas' shopping list is a second $7.5 million high-altitude plane to scan the border, a new border crime data center, a 5,000-acre training facility for border law-enforcement agencies and grants for year-round helicopter flights. The state also wants to hire two dozen Texas Rangers to investigate public corruption along the border and 250 new state troopers as a down payment on a permanent force along the border.

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Other states along the nearly 2,000-mile Southwest border — New Mexico, Arizona and California — do not come remotely close to the resources Texas has committed. And Texas is doing so long after last year's surge in undocumented immigrants crossing the border has subsided.

So why is Texas setting up what appears to be a parallel border patrol alongside the federal force?

"Google 'cartel crime in Mexico' and just put a time period of the last week, and you'll see some dramatic instances of what the cartels are doing in Mexico right now," Abbott told reporters this month following the legislative session. "The first obligation of government is to keep people safe and that means ensuring that this ongoing cartel activity, which is not abating whatsoever, gains no root at all in the state of Texas."

The 320-mile Rio Grande Valley sector of the border was ground zero last year for a wave of Central American migrants, mostly unaccompanied minors and women with children. The Valley sector accounted for 53 percent of all migrants captured in the Southwest during the fiscal year ending September.

Via: Newsmax

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Feds see surge in children crossing US border amid concerns over immigration policy

The number of children caught crossing the U.S. border has surged over the last two years, raising questions about whether the Obama administration's changing immigration policies are creating a magnet. 

Statistics released late last week show 24,668 "unaccompanied alien children" were placed last year in the care of the federal agency that, by law, is responsible for them. That's nearly double the number from 2012, and nearly quadruple the number in years past. 

As is often the case with immigration statistics, it's unclear what is driving the increase. The surge could be driven in part by better enforcement, and immigration officers doing a better job catching border crossers.

But critics point to other factors. A federal judge in Texas claimed earlier this month that the Department of Homeland Security has been delivering children smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border to their illegal immigrant parents. In June 2012, the administration decided to give a reprieve to young illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. 

Though the latter would not apply to people who just arrived, critics say these policies send a clear message south of the border: The rewards of trying to cross into the U.S. outweigh the risks. 

Chris Crane, who heads The National ICE Council immigration officer union, said agents are being "overrun" with children crossing the border. 

"We can't keep up with it," he said. 

Via: Fox News Politics

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Study says NM will see highest increase under ObamaCare: 130 percent

A national study of the Affordable Care Act shows people in New Mexico who buy health insurance on their own could face a huge spike in their premium costs. 

The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a fiscally conservative think tank based in New York City, looked at 13 states plus the District of Columbia and found that nine states will see increases on average while five will see decreases. 

The study says that New Mexico, at 130 percent,will see the steepest rate hike, followed by Vermont (97 percent), South Dakota (83 percent) and Connecticut (50 percent). 

"It'll vary," said Yevgeniy Feyman, the study's lead research associate, in a telephone interview with New Mexico Watchdog. "In New York, it will probably be an improvement. In New Mexico, probably not because it's adding a lot more regulations to the market." 

Feyman says the study was based on the government's own figures from the www.finder.healthcare.gov website and went by zip codes, looking at the cheapest rates available for individual market insurance plans.

Via: Fox News Politics

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Outrage over Outhouse Labeled 'Obama's Presidential Library'

TUCUMCARI, N.M. - Most Presidential libraries are constructed after the President completes his term. However, according to KOAT-ABC, a New Mexico man has determined the location for President Obama's library and has marked it with a sign that is sparking controversy in one small town. 

The sign rests on top of an outhouse. It reads: Obama's Presidential Library. 

Some in town view the sign as bad taste while others are supportive. One man told a local reporter that folks are treating it as a tourist destination and that it is frequently photographed. 

The man responsible for the sign would not reveal his name nor would he give any information as to his motivation but did say the following: "It's like watching TV. If you don't like what the hell you're watching, turn the channel.  I'm not even certain he even deserves that level of respect, but that's my opinion." 

He added "...and fortunately, that's one thing they haven't taken away from us ... is our right to our opinion," 

Via: Breitbart

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‘Democratic’ and ‘Anti-Business’ Are Becoming Synonymous

Forbes’s recently released list of “The Best States for Businesses and Careers” provides further evidence of the Democratic party’s striking erosion as a party of economic growth and prosperity.  Based on their votes in the most recent presidential election, all but three of Forbes’s top-10 states are Republican-leaning, while all but two of its bottom-10 states are Democratic-leaning. 

The top-10 states on Forbes’s list — Utah, Virginia, North Dakota, North Carolina, Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Iowa — voted for Mitt Romney by an average margin of 14 percentage points.  Meanwhile, the bottom-10 states on Forbes’s list — California, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Vermont, West Virginia, Mississippi, Michigan, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Maine — voted for President Obama by an average margin of 13 points.  That’s a 27-point swing from Romney to Obama as we move from the top-10 states to the bottom-10 states.

Forbes rated the states based on six factors: “business costs,” “labor supply,” “regulatory environment,” “economic climate,” “growth prospects,” and “quality of life.”  Forbes rated 62 percent of Obama’s states as being below average and 63 percent of Romney’s states as being above average.  Obama won only 33 percent of Forbes’s top-15 states but 73 percent of its bottom-15 states.

Via: Weekly Standard

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