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Committee backs plan to seek Medicaid waiver for intensive behavioral health supports
Summary
Lawmakers advanced House Bill 70 directing the Health Care Authority to apply for a Medicaid waiver to fund intensive community services and housing supports for people with serious behavioral-health disabilities; sponsors requested $1.1 million to prepare the federal application.
House Bill 70, which would direct the Health Care Authority (HCA) to prepare an application to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for a Behavioral Health Medicaid Waiver, received a due-pass recommendation from the committee after extensive public comment.
Sponsor Senator Ortiz y Pino and expert witnesses described the measure as a request for HCA to develop a waiver application that, if approved by CMS, would create a Medicaid-funded entitlement to community-based services for people with severe mental illness, brain injury or substance-use disorders. The bill includes an $1,100,000 appropriation to HCA for the planning, staffing and national-consultant costs necessary to prepare a federal waiver application and to set up initial administrative functions.
Proponents — including behavioral-health providers, disability advocates, veterans’ groups and county behavioral-health managers — testified that a waiver would allow New Mexico to finance intensive services that are currently missing from the system, such as supported housing, step-down facilities, and wraparound services for people who repeatedly cycle through emergency departments, jails and shelters. “We desperately need this,” Dorothy Seton of the Veterans and Military Families Caucus said, and several speakers described clients discharged from inpatient care with nowhere to go.
Experts told the committee that federal Medicaid waivers allow states to define eligibility, cap enrollment if necessary, and design a menu of services. Wayne Lindstrom, former state behavioral-health director and a county deputy manager, said the $1.1 million would fund a small HCA planning team and national consultants with prior waiver experience; actual program costs and state matches would be determined later if CMS approves an application.
Committee members asked technical questions about staffing, monitoring, and the scope of services. Several members said they supported the concept but were concerned about the long-term fiscal impact; two members voted against the bill in committee, citing uncertainty about out-year costs. The committee recorded a due-pass recommendation; the roll call was announced as 7–2 in favor.
