Premiums may increase by as much as 15 percent for state government employees.
Employees of the government of New Mexico may be facing health insurance premiums increases by as much as 15 percent as a result of rising medical care costs.
This is the estimate made for those covered by the most popular plan.
The increase will bring about an 
average annual rise of $133 for a single worker who makes $45,000. For family coverage for a worker who makes the same amount of money, the average annual increase will be $393.
The overall health insurance increase that will result from these changes will be worth a total of $10.1 million.
However, it is important to note that not all of those dollars will be paid by the workers. Moreover, before the health insurance rate increase is put into place, it will first need the approval of state lawmakers as an element of the budget for next year.
At the moment, the state is paying somewhere between 60 and 80 percent of the health insurance premiums of its workers, depending on the individual employee’s salary level. The increase to the rates will also be causing the state to have to pay 15 percent more in the premiums that it currently pays.
The Governor Susana Martinez administration intends to work to obtain the approval from the Legislature for the increase in premiums at some point during the 2013 session. Should the increases be approved, they would become effective in July 2013. Though these increases aren’t as large as those that are being faced in other parts of the country, and by those with individual policies, they are still likely to sting among the state’s employees, who have not seen a rise in their pay since 2008.
According to Ed Burckle, the General Services Secretary, the higher amount of money being paid will likely be offset to a large degree, by a greater take home pay as the higher mandatory contributions for retirement will expire as of next July for those same workers. Therefore, the difference that will be made to the final total of income seen by the employees when all is said and done may not change all that much.
