The cost of healthcare is becoming a campaign issue as the election season approaches.
New Mexico Attorney General, Hector Balderas, detailed the impact healthcare, or the lack of it, can have on the state’s residents.
“Because of our poverty rates, we are among the most vulnerable families in the United States of America, so it’s important,” Balderas told KOAT. “I’m very concerned not only for families in Albuquerque. Our rural communities are struggling to seek access to health care.”
Balderas accused Mark Ronchetti, the Republican candidate for governor, of opposing cost protections for New Mexicans.
“That's something that I'm radically against and I support a governor who wants to make healthcare more affordable," Balderas said.
Ronchetti called that political hogwash.
“These are more lies, distortions, and cover-ups from the Lujan Grisham administration,” Ronchetti told KOAT. “The only person who has limited access to healthcare is this governor who signed a bill making it easier to sue doctors. By doing so, she chased doctors from New Mexico, decimating our access to high-quality and affordable health care. Mark Ronchetti will protect New Mexicans' access to affordable healthcare, not throw money at trial lawyers."
Meanwhile, residents are left wondering what their healthcare will look like in the future.
“When you don’t have it, it’s very expensive,” Elizabeth Hursa, a New Mexico resident,” told KOAT. “Everybody needs healthcare. I don’t see why we’re the only industrialized nation that doesn’t have free health care for our citizens. It’s crazy. We should be able to walk in any hospital — anywhere, any state and be able to be seen without any questions other than your name and where you live.”