By MARGARET O’HARA
The Santa Fe New Mexican

Even among the people in charge of health care in New Mexico, health care can be hard to find. 

“Raise your hand if you can navigate the health care system in New Mexico,” Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, said Tuesday during a meeting of the Senate Finance Committee, which he chairs.

Not even the committee’s presenters—including three Cabinet secretaries and the head of the University of New Mexico Health System—raised their hands in response.

Frustrations around lack of access to health care were among the major themes as senators discussed the future of New Mexico’s health care system, which state officials said Tuesday will be further strained by an aging population and rising costs for care and prescription drugs. 

“There’s no one thing we’re going to do that’s going to instantly get us the kind of success that we want, but there are lots of things that we can do that will add up to better access and care,” said Dr. Michael Richards, executive vice president of UNM Health Sciences Center and CEO of UNM Health System.

“They won’t happen overnight,” he added. “These are oftentimes the kinds of investments that are going to play out over years, and I think that we’re on the path to do that.”

Within five years, one in four New Mexico residents will be 65 or older, said Emily Kaltenbach, Cabinet secretary for the Aging and Long Term Services Department. With an aging population comes higher demand for health care services, including for seniors in rural communities.

As demand increases, health care costs are rising, too — both for consumers and insurers. Individual insurance plans — sold on and off the state health insurance marketplace as part of the Affordable Care Act — saw an average rate increase of nearly 36% between 2025 and 2026.

Those costs can increase further when patients can’t find the care they need in New Mexico, said Sen. Linda Trujillo, D-Santa Fe. She gave the example of her husband, who sought care at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, after learning the wait time for a diagnostic scan would be three to six months in New Mexico.

“That means we [had to] drive to Phoenix, and then we stayed in Phoenix, and we paid for lodging,” she said. “I know that a lot of my constituents don’t have the capacity to do that. They don’t have the resources to do that.”

Meanwhile, the proliferation of expensive and novel weight loss drugs is driving up costs across the U.S. and in New Mexico, said Kari Armijo, Cabinet secretary of the state Health Care Authority, which administers Medicaid.

“We are all very concerned about affordability, not just to consumers, but affordability and sustainability to the overall system,” Armijo said.

Health care access and affordability have emerged as major priorities for this year’s legislative session. Lawmakers are looking a series of possible changes ranging from medical malpractice reform to health care workforce compacts to an expansion of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. 

“It’s where we’re at today, but we can fix it,” Muñoz said.