As the U.S. House was debating the proposed federal budget in recent days, governor Michelle Lujan Grisham was among those criticizing the plan.
The Republican-led house passed the measure in the early morning hours today.
Lujan Grisham and other governors held a press call yesterday excoriating the budget package.
They said the legislation’s cuts to healthcare and nutrition programs will be particularly harmful to the most vulnerable communities in the country.
In an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe a few days ago, the governor said that 840,000 New Mexico residents relying on Medicaid would be affected by cuts to those programs.
"It really unravels that cornerstone of protection for the people who need it most," Lujan Grisham said.
"Children, seniors living in nursing homes, disabled veterans, disabled adults, and the working poor. It makes no sense. We ought to be looking at how we make our healthcare system more affordable all the way around, have higher quality, and look at ways to navigate it so that it's not so bureaucratic."
Lujan Grisham said that eight hospitals in the state are in danger of closing and that the Medicaid cuts, if signed into law, would guarantee their demise.
Meanwhile, the state Republican party issued a statement yesterday in support of the measure.
It argues for supporting the bill because they say it would deliver large tax cuts—cuts that Democrats say will only benefit the wealthy.
The statement from the New Mexico GOP also argues that the plan would protect Medicaid by stopping what they say is abuse of the system by more than one million of a group they’re calling "illegal aliens."
The budget bill now moves to the US senate, where it only requires a simple majority to reach the desk of president Donald Trump.
