In the 2024 budgetary session, good, bad, and beneficial bills were brought through by well-meaning legislators.  Although the 2024 session is only a few months behind us, there are various bills whose work has started for the 2025 legislative session. Our team at the NMRHA has been looking forward to upcoming priorities for the 2025 legislative session, including some familiar bills. With a newly announced special Legislative Session on public safety in July, we fully expect that there will be a new legislative landscape in 2025 after the election season this November.  This past budgetary session, we saw priorities centered on New Mexico families and business interests. In 2025, we look forward to supporting policies that can balance the need for additional protections for families and economic prosperity for New Mexico.


Healthcare Equity, Access, and Delivery

In the realm of healthcare access, at the federal level, there have been no major changes that could directly affect New Mexicans’ access to healthcare. However, at the state level, the new version of Centennial Care 2.0- Turquoise Care- will roll out additional benefits and coverages for Medicaid and Medicare recipients across the state in 2024. For next year’s legislative session, we expect to see complementary policies being passed that enhance the services provided by Turquoise Care and the expansion of certain state-wide policies to make healthcare more equitable. In 2025, HB7 (the Health Care Affordability Fund Distribution) will begin charging a 30% health insurance premium surtax to health insurance policy net receipts across the state. This surtax will be directed to the Health Care Affordability Fund, which provides Medicaid subsidies for low and moderate-income families in New Mexico. These enhancements to the fund will allow more families and individuals to receive healthcare at a lower, more equitable rate. 

Similarly, in this upcoming legislative session, we might see bills that improve pharmaceutical reimbursement rates for providers and patients who use Medicaid, additional subsidies for rural healthcare hospitals and clinics, and extra privacy protections for patients across New Mexico. We expect there will also be a renewed push for Paid Family Medical Leave, a critical bill that has been introduced in the past two legislative sessions but has yet to be passed. This bill would provide necessary additional income to families experiencing a medical emergency, injury, or family crisis. It will also improve health outcomes for rural patients and new parents who could take up to 12 weeks off from work with the subsidized income.  Although it reached peak support in 2024 before dying in committee, we hope that in the 2025 legislative session, there will be a second wind for this piece of legislation. 


Poverty in New Mexican families

Poverty has been a huge issue for New Mexicans. With increases in homelessness, food insecurity, and inflation, it has been harder than ever to keep NM families afloat. At the federal level, SNAP benefits and emergency family funding have reached lower, pre-COVID levels. This means that families have less assistance with food at higher post-inflation prices. At the state level, legislators are getting creative and providing additional SNAP benefits for seniors and summer feeding programs for K-12-aged children. In this upcoming legislative session, we expect there to be more innovative ways to help NM families and individuals fight poverty. 

In 2024, several pieces of legislation were included to beef up funding for critical services such as transitional housing for victims of domestic violence, statewide homelessness initiatives, and over 1 billion dollars for education and literacy initiatives. This year, Governor Lujan Grisham has announced a special session focusing solely on public safety across the state. For this special session, we expect there to be renewed interest in public safety initiatives including firearm restrictions which were either watered down or blocked during the regular 2024 session. Gun restrictions seem to be a hot-button issue which will take a lot of time this special session. Hopefully, Governor Lujan-Grisham will include additional public safety concerns such as protections for families and individuals who suffer from domestic and family violence.


Climate Change, Agricultural Concerns, and Energy

In 2024, several bills passed that showed New Mexico’s renewed commitment to clean energy and environmental health. These bills included HB41, a bill to establish clean fuel standards, and fines for violating these standards. There are also incentives to find cleaner, alternative energy sources, such as the ones created with HB91- the Geothermal Resources Project Funds Act. Other initiatives include a 50-year statewide water plan that will prioritize advancing relationships with Indigenous groups through superfund site cleanups and advancing Indian water rights settlements. 

This year, with the recent Salt and South Fork wildfires in Ruidoso and Mescalero, there is a large incentive to prioritize environmental concerns in New Mexico. Some of these initiatives include increasing penalties for those who start wildfires and protecting the forest and Indigenous lands that were ravaged by the fires. Rural community lawmakers seem to be aiming at making this a primary concern during this July Special Session, including increasing jail time for fire-starters and increasing penalties for people who are found looting or stealing during fire emergencies.