updated Mon June 17, 2013
When New Mexico Human Services Department Secretary Sidonie Squier and her staff began designing the state’s new Medicaid program two years ago, they hadn’t anticipated that it would turn into something of a jobs machine.
Their goal, Squier said, was to develop a coordinated care model that would keep people healthier and slow the cost increases of the joint state/federal program that provides 560,000 New Mexicans with health care.
But the program, now called Centennial Care, has spurred a lot of hiring.
Three of the plan’s insurers – UnitedHealthcare, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico and Molina Healthcare ...