By KRWG News
New Mexico – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today announced that the New Mexico Department of Human Services has been awarded $1 million through a newly created grant program established under the new health insurance law that took effect six months ago.
The funding will help New Mexico begin the research and planning needed to establish state health insurance exchanges - new, competitive, consumer-centered private health insurance marketplaces - and to determine how the exchanges will be operated.
"Insurance exchanges will help to lower costs for individuals and businesses, provide long overdue protections from insurance company abuses, and make the experience of purchasing health insurance much easier and simpler," Bingaman said.
Although state exchanges are not required to be operational until 2014, these planning grants will help New Mexico take the first steps toward establishing them.