TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Health care reform won't be cheap
One of Gov. Bill Richardson's top priorities is for all New Mexicans to have health care coverage, but the numbers just aren't panning out, the Albuquerque Journal reports today. State Sen. John Arthur Smith, a Deming Democrat and chairman of the Legislative Finance Committee, says health care coverage has to share the state's limited budget with other needs such as roads and education. Richardson said last week he will call the Legislature back into special session this summer to tackle health care coverage, but Smith said he doubts lawmakers would will get anything substantive done.
A Dixon couple visited Iran this spring, the Taos News reports, and found Iranians "the warmest people in the world." Gaia Mika and Hank Brusselback spent a month there as peace delegates for the Fellowship for Reconciliation, a national group dedicated to promoting peace in countries on tenuous terms with the United States. Brusselback said they learned during their trip "that we were all victims of our governments. Just like here, the people you see in the mainstream media are a tiny amount of the other 70 million people who roll their eyes and say, ‘That’s just the president.’”
It's still not safe to eat fish out of Brantley Reservoir near Carlsbad, the Carlsbad Current Argus reports today. Levels of the toxic chemical compound DDT found in channel catfish are three times higher than the federal safety limit, and are not likely to fall any time soon, according to state health officials. The pollution made its way into the reservoir from the Pecos River, studies have shown. "We don't want to discourage fishermen from coming out here," Brantley Lake State Park Superintendent Adrian Stiteler told the paper. "We just want them to practice catch-and-release for their own safety."
Stroke victims may enjoy better recovery thanks to an experimental surgical process being evaluated by University of New Mexico Hospital and 21 other medical centers nationwide, according to the Albuquerque Journal. Surgeons are rerouting the blood supply in some stroke victims to send more blood to the brain, flooding it with additional oxygen. Two New Mexico men have received the blood bypass surgery and both report improvement in their cognitive abilities, the Journal reported.
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