{"id":3084,"date":"2008-04-10T17:46:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-10T23:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/04\/senate-dem-leaders-call-for-special-session-in-the-fall\/"},"modified":"2008-04-10T17:46:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-10T23:46:00","slug":"senate-dem-leaders-call-for-special-session-in-the-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/04\/senate-dem-leaders-call-for-special-session-in-the-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Dem leaders call for special session in the fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Hours after Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> threatened to hold a special session for universal health care in May because of a lack of progress on the topic by Senate leaders, the top Senate Democrats endorsed the idea of a special session but said it should be held no sooner than the fall. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cEvery New Mexican deserves to be able to get good, affordable health care when they need it. We are committed to making sure that happens,\u201d Senate President Tim Jennings<\/a>, D-Roswell, said in a news release. \u201cThe reforms necessary to achieve that goal are quite complex and need to be worked out over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cSeveral members of the state Senate have been meeting and will continue to meet in the coming months to help forge an agreement on the difficult question of how best to approach or pay for health-care reforms,\u201d said Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez<\/a>, D-Belen. \u201cI expect that groundwork can be completed by the end of the summer and that a special session could convene as early as this fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Earlier today<\/a>, I reported on Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s threat to call the session in May because he said Senate leaders have met only once to discuss universal health care and have made no progress. The House approved a version of Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s plan earlier this year, but the Senate didn\u2019t touch it.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The news release said Sanchez and Jennings<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> are part of a bipartisan group of senators who have been meeting with the governor and his staff in anticipation of a special session on health-care reform. They said their understanding has been that the session would be held in the late summer or fall.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said at the end of February after meeting with Senate leaders. It was only today that he said he had changed his mind because of their lack of progress.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But Sanchez said it\u2019s important \u201cto reach an agreement on as many aspects of this issue as possible before convening a special session.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re making progress and I\u2019m hopeful that in a few more months we can hold a productive special session that will get us closer to our goal,\u201d Sanchez said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Jennings<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> and Sanchez said agreement still needs to be reached on numerous details, as well as on the broad and preliminary questions of the urgency of the problem and the proper roles of the government and private sector in addressing them.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The state\u2019s economy also has to be considered, Jennings<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said. He noted that new state revenue estimates are due in June and the Legislature and governor should take that information into account when considering implementation of potentially costly health-care reforms.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cWe should also take a look at the experience in Massachusetts<\/st1:state>, which recently enacted universal health care,\u201d Jennings<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hours after Gov. Bill Richardson threatened to hold a special session for universal health care in May because of a lack of progress on the topic by Senate leaders, the top Senate Democrats endorsed the idea of a special session but said it should be held no sooner than the fall. \u201cEvery New Mexican deserves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}