Healthy & Safe Communities Publications
Child Welfare Matters
Presentation On the status of child well-being in New Mexico, with a focus on child abuse, looking at policies that have negatively impacted child well-being and policy solutions that would improve it. Presented to the Legislative Health and Human Services Committee. (State-level data on indicators of child well-being)
Hunger 101
Presentation Looks are some of the reasons child hunger is so pervasive in New Mexico as well as policy solutions from our NM KIDS are COUNTing on Us campaign that would help. Presented at the Interfaith Hunger Coalition's Hunger 101 Workshop in Albuquerque. (State-level data on indicators of child well-being, food insecurity, and economic security)
NM KIDS are COUNTing on Us: A Campaign for a Better New Mexico
Policy Agenda For the third straight year, New Mexico ranks 49th in the nation for child well-being. It will take a comprehensive and focused set of strategies, and the political and public will to make them a reality, to improve child well-being in New Mexico. This policy agenda, based on the metrics used to measure child well-being in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual KIDS COUNT Data Book, offers one such approach.
Cuts to Medicaid will make New Mexico’s budget problems worse
Fact Sheet Every year, as we continue to give away much-needed revenue in the form of ineffective tax cuts, New Mexico must revisit this choice: do we protect tax cuts for corporations and the rich and continue to under-fund critical services like health care and education or do we raise new revenue and invest in the programs that make New Mexico’s people and economy strong and healthy?
HSD inefficiencies cost New Mexico money and deny eligible families food and medical assistance
Fact Sheet For a quarter of a century New Mexico has been under a court order to improve how it processes applications for food and health care benefits. Yet it continues to be in contempt of court. This fact sheet looks at the problems and presents solutions. Produced in conjunction with the NM Center on Law and Poverty. (State-level data on NM HSD's problems processing Medicaid and SNAP applications)
Valuing Families at Work: The Case for Paid Sick Leave
Report Many low-wage occupations do not come with benefits like paid sick leave. So workers who are already earning low wages have to forfeit those wages in order to stay at home to tend a sick child or care for themselves. The U.S. has no national policy, so states and cities are taking up the issue. With the lowest rate in the nation of workers with paid sick leave, New Mexico has much to gain by enacting such legislation. (State-, national-, and international-level data on sick leave policies, some by race and ethnicity)
Reasons to fully fund the Medicaid expansion #4
Fact Sheet Some lawmakers have balked at fully funding Medicaid now that we have to start paying our share of the Medicaid expansion, but there are many reasons to do it. The Medicaid expansion has been good for our economy. By increasing demand for health care, Medicaid has created some of the only job growth the state has seen over the last year. And job growth will likely remain strong in the years ahead.
Reasons to fully fund the Medicaid expansion #3
Fact Sheet Some lawmakers have balked at fully funding Medicaid now that we have to start paying our share of the Medicaid expansion, but there are many reasons to do it. Actually, there more than 800,000 reasons to fully fund Medicaid -- because that’s how many New Mexicans are able to receive health care thanks to the program. (County-level data on Medicaid enrollment)
Reasons to fully fund the Medicaid expansion #2
Fact Sheet Some lawmakers have balked at fully funding Medicaid now that we have to start paying our share of the Medicaid expansion, but there are many reasons to do it. Besides decreasing hospital stays for those who are uninsured, the Medicaid expansion is good for the state piggy bank in other ways, because federal funding is now covering medical bills the state used to pay. We’re also bringing in new revenue. In all, the expansion will more than pay for itself until 2021.
Reasons to fully fund the Medicaid expansion #1
Fact Sheet Some lawmakers have balked at fully funding Medicaid now that we have to start paying our share of the Medicaid expansion, but there are many reasons to do it. For one, the number of hospital stays that are not covered by insurance has dropped, while the number that are covered by Medicaid has risen by the same amount. That saves New Mexico money.