The 2026 legislative session begins on January 20! Here are brief summaries of the bills we are working on, with links to our Action Center so you can easily contact your legislators and the governor about any of them. Please check back often, as we will continue to add bills to this list as they are introduced.
Health Care Legislation
- Join the major interstate health care worker compacts New Mexico does not yet participate in. We are advocating for bills that would bring New Mexico into the interstate compacts for physicians (Senate Bill TBD), psychologists (House Bill 33), counselors (House Bill 32), emergency medical personnel (House Bill 31), dentists and dental hygienists (House Bill 44), physician assistants (House Bill 45), audiologists and speech pathologists, physical therapists, and occupational therapists. These bills would make it easier for health care providers licensed in other states to care for New Mexico patients, including via telehealth. Read more about this reform and email your legislators and the governor to urge them to pass it!
- Add funding to the Medicaid Permanent Fund. In 2025, Think New Mexico successfully advocated for the creation of a new permanent trust fund for Medicaid. This year we are supporting efforts appropriate more money to the fund so that it will reach its $2 billion goal as quickly as possible. Once it reaches this goal, it will pay out $100 million a year that will be matched 3:1 with federal dollars, generating $400 million for Medicaid services in New Mexico. Read more about this reform and email your legislators and the governor to urge them to pass it!
- Repeal the Gross Receipts Tax on coinsurance payments. We are advocating for legislation that would repeal the GRT on coinsurance payments for medical services. New Mexico is now the only state that imposes this tax, and in many cases doctors are not able to pass the cost along to patients, so they end up paying it out of their own pockets. This makes it more expensive to practice medicine in New Mexico. Read more about this reform and email your legislators and the governor to urge them to pass it!
- Enhance the student loan repayment program for health care workers: House Bill 66. We are advocating for House Bill 66 to make New Mexico’s student loan repayment program the best in the nation. The bill would increase the maximum amount that doctors are eligible for from $75,000 over three years to $300,000 over four years. It would also appropriate $25 million for loan repayment, with 50% earmarked for doctors and 50% for other health care workers. Read more about this reform and email your legislators and the governor to urge them to pass it!
Education Reform Legislation
Other Legislation
- Support Funding for the Strategic Water Reserve. The Strategic Water Reserve is an innovative water management tool that Think New Mexico proposed and won passage of in 2005. It allows the state to buy and lease water rights to help keep our rivers flowing to meet the needs of endangered species and the state’s water delivery obligations under interstate compacts. Last year Think New Mexico partnered with a coalition to create a fund for the Strategic Water Reserve. This year we are supporting efforts to fill that fund with up to $15.5 million, as recommended by the Legislative Finance Committee. Read more about this reform.
Governor Lujan Grisham called a special legislative session that will convene on Wednesday, October 1.
Please email your legislators and the governor and urge them to pass all of the interstate health care worker compacts during the special session!
Joining the interstate compacts for health care workers is the most impactful step that lawmakers can take to immediately expand the supply of health care providers available to New Mexicans, including via telehealth.
Passing the interstate compacts during the special session could also be worth millions of dollars for New Mexico’s rural hospitals.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services just released the application form that states will use to request funding from the $50 billion fund for rural hospitals that was included in the federal budget bill. The application for those federal funds awards more points to states that participate in the interstate health care worker compacts.
This means that New Mexico’s failure to participate in most of the compacts puts us at a disadvantage to other states in applying for those federal dollars!
The scoring system specifically awards additional points to states that participate in the compacts for physicians, physician assistants, emergency medical personal, nurses, and psychologists, because joining those compacts “increases the supply of accessible rural health providers [and] also increases the reach and effectiveness of telehealth in enhancing rural access.”
The deadline to apply for this one-time funding is early November, with the money awarded by the end of the year. So if lawmakers wait until the regular legislative session next January to join the compacts, it will be too late, and New Mexico’s rural hospitals may lose out on millions of dollars.
But if lawmakers pass the compacts during the special session that starts October 1, we can make it in under the deadline and maximize New Mexico’s chances of receiving urgently needed funding for our rural hospitals – while also increasing access to health care providers for all New Mexicans.
Earlier this year a dark money group called “New Mexico Safety Over Profit” (NMSOP) was sued by the state Ethics Commission for refusing to comply with the state law that required them to disclose the sources of their funding. NMSOP was the public face of the opposition to Think New Mexico’s proposed reforms to the medical malpractice law during the last legislative session.
NMSOP was adamant that they would not reveal their donors, telling the investigative news outlet Searchlight New Mexico: “We certainly will not be disclosing our donors, nor do we have to.”
NMSOP has now done just that.
In order to settle the 73-page legal action filed by the New Mexico Ethics Commission, NMSOP is paying a $5,000 fine, the maximum amount authorized for violations of the Lobbyist Regulation Act, and releasing their full list of donors.
So who was secretly funding this dark money group?
As it turns out, 100% of their donors are trial lawyers, law firms, and one paralegal. Over 74% of their donors are current board members or past presidents of the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association (which is itself listed as a donor). You can see the full list here: sorted alphabetically by donor or sorted by donation amount.
Thanks to the New Mexico Ethics Commission, the public now knows that NMSOP is a front group for the trial lawyer’s lobby, which is focused on protecting the financial interests of its members. Reforms that Think New Mexico has proposed—like capping attorney’s fees in medical malpractice lawsuits—would put more money in patients’ pockets but would reduce the amount of money going to their attorneys.
A dark money group, New Mexico Safety over Profits (NMSOP), with deep ties to the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association, attacked Think New Mexico in a recent opinion piece in the Santa Fe New Mexican.
That opinion piece is filled with some wild, over the top conspiracy theories (you can read it here, with our annotations and corrections). You can read our response in the Santa Fe New Mexican at this link.
You can also read the 73-page lawsuit against NMSOP that was filed by the New Mexico Ethics Commission over NMSOP’s refusal to disclose its donors, as well as an investigative piece by Searchlight New Mexico on NMSOP’s misleading practices.
During the 2025 legislative session, Think New Mexico successfully championed the passage of five major reforms:
- Senate Bill 88, which creates a permanent trust fund for Medicaid. The fund will receive recurring revenue until it grows to $2 billion, allowing the state to increase the rates it pays providers to care for patients insured by Medicaid. Read more about this reform.
- House Bill 14, an omnibus tax bill that includes a repeal of the gross receipts tax on coinsurance, on top of the existing deduction for co-pays and deductibles. This will reduce state taxes on medical services by nearly $50 million annually. Read more about this reform.
- House Bill 157, which will raise the standards for principal training by creating a separate licensure track for school principals with enhanced mentoring and other support. Read more about this reform.
- House Bill 156, which ensures that New Mexico teachers will be trained in the best practices for how to effectively teach students how to read. Read more about this reform.
- Senate Bill 37, which enhances the Strategic Water Reserve, a water management tool that Think New Mexico first developed two decades ago to keep a little more water in New Mexico’s rivers. Read more about this reform.
Think New Mexico has just released a new report proposing a ten-point plan with 20 separate legislative recommendations to address the urgent crisis of New Mexico’s health care worker shortage! Click here to read more about the reforms we’re proposing.
If you like what you read and you’d like to be part of this effort to revitalize public schools in New Mexico, please contact your legislators and the governor and urge them to enact these reforms during the upcoming 2025 legislative session!
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Think New Mexico is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization. Our EIN is 31-1611995. Financials and more information is available on our transparency page.
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