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Inside
The New Mexic an’s Weekly Magaz
ine of Arts, Entert
ainment & Cultur
e
October 17, 2014
www.santafenewmexican.com $1.2 25
Police: Kidnapping was over ‘bad’ pot Santa Fe police were called to a McDonald’s where a man claimed he was being held at gunpoint in a dispute where a woman wanted her money back or better marijuana. PAGE B-1
Vatican changes report on gays Language was changed to now say “providing for homosexual persons” instead of “welcoming homosexual persons.” PAGE A-2
U.S. SENATE RACE
Udall, Weh differ over minimum wage Rival gets little aid from national GOP groups By Milan Simonich The New Mexican
All year long, Republicans have talked about unseating a Democratic Tom Udall Allen Weh U.S. senator with the famous surname of Udall. Now, with the fall campaign hitting They usually were referring to its homestretch, Republican Allen Sen. Mark Udall, who is in a competi- Weh is trying to expand the conversation to include his opponent in New tive race in Colorado.
Mexico, Sen. Tom Udall. The GOP nationally has focused less on Tom Udall than his cousin and Senate colleague, Mark Udall. Tom Udall throughout his campaign in New Mexico has had front-runner status. “The Koch brothers have stayed out at this point,” Tom Udall, 66, said one recent day. He referred to business executives Charles and David Koch, who help finance political committees that support Republican candidates.
INSIDE u Weh blasts Udall’s allegiance to U.S. in mail ad. PAGE A-4 u N.M. Court of Appeals features one contested race. PAGE A-6
Weh, 71, has tried to energize his base in the last week by making “upset” the key word in his campaign. He took his cue from a column in right-leaning National Review Online
Please see SENATE, Page A-4
Mayor Javier Gonzales began
3 ELECTIONS 2014 The issues facing New Mexico
Fears over Ebola are spreading
Need, fraud battles define human services
Staff who treated patient who died told to stay home; schools, workers given time off By Jamie Stengle The Associated Press
DALLAS — Texas officials moved for the first time Thursday to force health care workers who had contact with a dying Ebola patient to stay home, reversing course after a nurse later diagnosed with the disease flew across the Midwest and deepened anxiety about whether the virus would spread in the U.S. Seventy-five Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas employees who had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan were asked to sign legal documents in which they agreed not go to public places or use mass transit, according to Judge Clay Jenkins, top administrator for Dallas County. The agreements are legally binding and can be enforced with a variety of remedies, Jenkins said, though he repeatedly declined to elaborate on specific punishments and expressed confidence that everyone would comply. “From 21 days after their last exposure, we are agreeing that they are not going to go on any form of public conveyance — any sort of public transportation,” Jenkins said. “We are agreeing that they won’t go where people congregate — public spaces — and we are agreeing that they will
Please see EBOLA, Page A-5
INSIDE
nudging both sides to hold in-person talks when they seemed farthest apart.
S.F. mayor kept talks going with Christus, nurses Union, hospital praise Gonzales’ involvement By Patrick Malone The New Mexican
Supporters of New Mexico behavioral health providers rally outside a legislative committee hearing. Gov. Susana Martinez administration removed 15 New Mexico agencies that treated people with mental illness and substance abuse problems, citing suspicions of fraud that to date have not been proven. NEW MEXICAN FILE PHOTO
EDITOR’S NOTE This is the sixth article in a series looking at issues important to New Mexicans in the 2014 governor’s race. On Wednesday, we covered transparency and Thursday we examined the environment. View earlier stories and additional election coverage at www. santafenew mexican.com/ elections.
u A nurse says Ebola controls in Dallas were poor. PAGE A-5
Martinez bashed over removal of behavioral health providers while King’s investigation still drags on By Patrick Malone The New Mexican
W
hen Gov. Susana Martinez signed off on Medicaid expansion last year in conjunction with the Affordable Care Act, even her harshest critics praised her. The move has helped make an additional 168,452 low-income New Mexicans eligible for government health insurance. But the accolades stop there. In a state that the U.S. Census Bureau ranks ahead of only Mississippi in the percentage of residents living in poverty, advocates for the poor call Martinez’s human services record abysmal. They
have bashed her administration for abruptly removing New Mexico behavioral health providers accused of fraud and replacing them with Arizona firms; for implementing work requirements for some food benefit recipients; and for delays in processing food and health assistance applications that in some cases has left poor New Mexicans without benefits for months. As the Nov. 4 election approaches, Martinez’s Democratic opponent, Attorney General Gary King, says he would do better by the poor if elected, in part by replacing the governor’s Human Services secretary. But he has not made
Please see HEALTH, Page A-5
Just as negotiations between Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center and the union that represents its nurses and support staff seemed to be nearly settled last week, the hospital made an offer that nurses say set back the talks and threatened to prolong the labor dispute. With the best hope for resolution seemingly slipping away, leaders of New Mexico District 1199 of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees appealed to Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales to press the hospital to tweak its offer. “We thought we had it nailed, then the proposal that came back from the hospital had a couple of poison pills in it,” Fonda Osborn, the union’s lead negotiator, said. “We met with the mayor at his office on Sunday and told him that we thought we were close, but found out we were miles apart again. We laid out our concerns for him, and we know he placed some calls outlining our concerns with management.” Three days later, on Wednesday, the union and the hospital announced that they had reached a tentative agreement on a new contract that establishes a minimum staffing level, the most contentious
Please see MAYOR, Page A-4
Health care costs not skyrocketing for businesses Insurance premiums for company plans have smallest rise on 16 years By Alex Wayne and Thomas Black Bloomberg News
WASHINGTON — Business groups said soon after the healthcare act became law in 2010 that the sweeping health care overhaul would impose huge new costs on U.S. employers, leading to job losses. Three years later, with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in effect, none of the most dire predictions has come to pass. Insurance premiums for companies that offer
Index
Calendar A-2
Classifieds C-2
health benefits increased less than 3 percent this year, the lowest rate in 16 years. While Wal-Mart Stores became the latest large employer to scale back its health benefits this month, the change affects only parttime workers — saving the retailer an estimated $51 million a year. “To the extent they thought that the employer market would explode because of it, or there would be severe disruption or anything like that, we certainly didn’t see that,” Gary Claxton, a vice president at the Menlo Park, Calif.-based Kaiser Family Foundation, a health research group, said in a telephone interview. One critical prediction came from Tom Donohue, the U.S. Chamber of
Comics C-10
Main office: 983-3303 Late paper: 986-3010 News tips: 986-3035
Crosswords C-3, C-9
Commerce president, who said in January 2011 that many companies were thinking about ending their employer-based plans to cope with the law’s new mandates. That hasn’t happened. None of the more than 600,000 employers who are clients of Automatic Data Processing, the largest U.S. payroll firm, is planning to eliminate health benefits for full-time workers in response to the law sometimes called Obamacare. While there are costs imposed on employers by the law, the amounts are nominal for most companies, according to benefits consultants. “Companies view the Affordable Care Act as a compliance mecha-
Lotteries A-2
Opinion A-7
nism, as opposed to it changing, completely overhauling the landscape of America,” said Tim Nimmer, chief actuary for Aon Hewitt, a benefits consulting firm. Costs under the law “are pretty much right in line with what they expected,” he said. Donohue wasn’t available for an interview, Blair Latoff Holmes, a spokeswoman for the Chamber, said in an email. Slower increases in insurance premiums and national health- care spending have mitigated the impact of the law on U.S. companies. Many employers are also shifting costs to workers with higher co-payments
Sports B-5
Please see COSTS, Page A-4
Time Out C-9
Gen Next C-1
BREAKING NEWS AT WWW.SANTAFENEWMEXICAN.COM
Obituaries David C. Jansheski, Oct. 3 Dorotha Helen Gosling, 84, Santa Fe, Oct. 10 Esther Sena, 83, Santa Fe, 83 Robert Gurule, Oct. 13 Eloi Alberto Leyba Jr., 26, Oct. 10 PAGE B-2
Today Sunny to partly cloudy. High 73, low 46. PAGE A-8
Three sections, 28 pages Pasatiempo, 54 pages 165th year, No. 290 Publication No. 596-440