New Mexico laws lowering taxes, easing access to medication take effect in 2025

One new federal mandate will require some people to prove they have jobs to receive federal food benefits.

​By: Austin Fisher
​Source NM

The new year will see the start of state laws in New Mexico that will lower personal income taxes and make it easier to get certain medications. One new law will make it harder for some people to get food benefits.

All of the newly enacted laws detailed below take effect on Jan. 1. Here’s what you need to know, as organized by the state agency responsible for carrying them out.

Taxation and Revenue Department
The state tax code amended by House Bill 252 earlier this year will reduce the amount of taxes everyone pays, “but especially for those at the low- and middle-income levels,” said Charlie Moore, a spokesperson for the Taxation and Revenue Department.

“It is the first major adjustment of brackets since 2005, meaning many taxpayers have moved into higher brackets as their income increased and due to inflation over the years,” Moore said.
A married couple filing jointly with $50,000 in income, for example, could save $303 per year, he said. There will now be six brackets, compared to five under the existing structure, with rates ranging from 1.5% to 5.9%, he said.

KUNM News created detailed tables showing how the new tax structure affects single and joint filers.

Previously, unmarried people who earned between $16,000 and $210,000 per year were in the same bracket and taxed at the same rate of nearly 5% of what they made.

Health Care Authority
Companies that deliver maternal and child health care, primary care and mental health care will be able to get reimbursed more money under part of the state government’s annual budget approved earlier this year.

Lawmakers set aside more than $28 million for this purpose, and companies will get reimbursed at 150% of the rate they normally get from the Health Care Authority through Medicare.

The Health Care Authority is also responsible for overseeing the food benefits program, which will change for some people in the new year.

Some New Mexicans getting food benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, will have to prove that they are working a full-time job, volunteering, interning or going to school to keep receiving them.

The new federally mandated work requirements will affect SNAP recipients who are not disabled and do not have any dependents.

The work requirements are limited to those living in Bernalillo, Santa Fe, Eddy and Los Alamos counties, and the Pueblos of San Ildefonso, Pojoaque, Santa Clara and Laguna. 

In total, the work requirements will apply to nearly 12,000 New Mexicans.

Office of the Superintendent of Insurance
​This year, lawmakers changed the Health Care Purchasing Act to curb the use of step therapy, which is the process by which insurance companies, and the pharmacy benefit management companies that handle prescriptions for them, refuse to cover a specific drug until after the patient has tried cheaper alternatives.

The Office of the Superintendent of Insurance, the state’s insurance regulator, already had the power to review and appeal a health insurer’s denial of a request for an exception to step protocols.

The new law requires insurers to authorize these kinds of drugs for the entire duration of their therapeutic effect, or five years.

It also requires insurers to authorize a prescription subject to step protocols even when someone loses their insurance that was provided by their employer.

“This is to ensure uninterrupted access to medically necessary drugs,” said Jennifer Romero, a spokesperson for the office.
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The new law also prohibits step therapy for autoimmune disorders and cancer treatments, except when a generic is available, and lifts the requirement for doctors to get prior authorization from insurers to prescribe these treatments.