A leading Republican state legislator is calling on New Mexico’s two Democratic U.S. Senators to reverse their opposition to a short-term government funding bill, after the Legislature passed its own fix to address the expiration of federal health insurance tax credits.
Last week, New Mexico House Minority Floor Leader Gail Armstrong (R-Magdalena) posted a screenshot of a letter she wrote to Senators Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan, in which she argued that because state lawmakers in New Mexico having passed House Bill 2 during last week’s two-day special session, the rationale given for the two senators continuing to withhold support for a Republican-backed continuing resolution “has now been eliminated.”
“With our state having stepped up to cover these subsidies, there is no longer any legitimate reason for New Mexico’s federal delegation to oppose moving forward on the Continuing Resolution,” Armstrong wrote in the letter. She added that the ongoing shutdown is disrupting government services and contracts essential to New Mexico households, businesses, service members and tribal communities.
House Bill 2 allows individuals making 400% or more of the Federal Poverty Level to be eligible for assistance from the state’s Healthcare Affordability Fund for buying health insurance through the state’s beWellNM exchange. The move is meant to offset expected coverage losses and spikes in premiums predicted to hit consumers if the federal subsidies, known as Enhanced Premium Tax Credits, lapse on Dec. 31. The Legislative Finance Committee estimated before the passage of House Bill 2 that, as many as 27,100 New Mexicans would lose their insurance if the federal credits are not extended.
The subsidies are a key sticking point in attempts to end the nine-day-old government shutdown. Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the continuing resolution, but the measure has repeatedly fallen short of the 60 votes needed to advance out of the Senate.
Lujan’s office has not responded to requests for comment about whether the legislation passed in New Mexico would change his vote, though he and Heinrich have continued to vote several times against the continuing resolution since Armstrong’s letter was made public. Heinrich responded to Armstrong’s request with a letter of his own, in which he stated that he would continue fighting for a bipartisan spending bill that extends the federal subsidies.
“On behalf of our shared constituencies, I greatly appreciate the legislation passed by the New Mexico Legislature, and I recognize that the scale of our situation requires a federal response, too,” Heinrich stated in his letter. He went on to note that he has supported an alternative resolution pushed by Democrats. That bill, which contains language to renew the credits and repeals sections related to Medicaid changes included in the Reconciliation Bill that Trump signed this summer, has been rejected multiple times in the Senate.
Heinrich, in his letter, also blamed Republicans and Trump for the funding standoff, saying that as the majority party, they have had ample opportunity to seek a compromise that could attract more Democratic support, and that a bipartisan deal is the only way to break the impasse.