Waiting List for New Employer Group Enrollees Begins Saturday, December 19, 2009
Santa Fe, New Mexico – The New Mexico Human Services Department will begin a waiting list for new employer groups who are interested in enrolling their employees in the State Coverage Insurance (SCI) Program, beginning Saturday, December 19, 2009. All group applications submitted to the Human Services Department’s Insure New Mexico!SolutionsCenterby Friday, December 18, 2009 at 5:00 p.m. will be processed for eligibility. Employer groups currently participating in the SCI program will be allowed to continue to submit new applicants for enrollment without waiting list limitations at this time.
“There are currently more than 50,000 New Mexico adults participating in the SCI Program, who previously had no health coverage,” said KathrynFalls, Human Services Department Secretary-designate. “Funding for the SCI program is at capacity which is why this waiting list is necessary at this time.”
This waiting list is a cost-containment measure the department has begun for the Medicaid and other health coverage programs due to a projected shortfall in the current and upcoming budget years. In November the department began a waiting list for individual applicants to the SCI program. The new group waiting list will be a separate waiting list from the individual waiting list.
The SCI program was implemented as part of Governor Richardson’s Insure New Mexico! Solutions in July 2005, designed to cover low-income, uninsured, working adults (ages 19-64) in a primarily employer based model with cost-sharing on a sliding-scale based on income.
There are approximately 1,500 lives in small employer groups that are participating in the SCI program, with the average employer group size of just over nine employees per group. The majority of industrial categories are food service, hospitality, retail, health care and education services.
Eligibility for the SCI program is based on household incomes below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. For example an individual with an annual income of $21,660 or a family of two with an annual income of $29,148 would likely qualify.
People interested in applying and getting on the waiting list for the SCI program can receive an application by either calling the Insure New Mexico!SolutionsCenterat 1-888-997-2583 or visiting the Insure New Mexico! website.
