Angry crowd meets, Medicaid concerns

From KRQE-TV.com - ALBUQUERQUE - Keep your hands off my Medicaid. That was the message to state officials with the New Mexico Human Services Department during a public meeting on the future of Medicaid Thursday in Albuquerque. "If you agree with me stand up and yell," one woman said at the meeting held at the University of New Mexico Center for Continuing Education building. Dozens and dozens at the meeting said they do not want cuts of any kind to Medicaid, a program that provides health care to those living in poverty. "With the implementation of national health care reform we are going to have between 130-170,000 people eligible for Medicaid in the state," said Humans Services Communications Director Matt Kennicott. Those changes are not until 2014, but Kennicott said in the end, it could cost an additional $300 million to $600 million in state payouts by 2019. Right now one in four people in the state are on Medicaid. Read more