The ranks of the voiceless poor are
growing in New Mexico…
- According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate for New Mexico was 17.7% in 2003. The USDA estimates the 2003 poverty rate for children under 17 years of age was 25.9%.
- 25% of New Mexicans have no health care coverage. The primary reason people are uninsured is because health insurance coverage is too expensive.
- Nearly one-quarter of the uninsured report changing their way of life significantly in order to pay medical bills. Over 42 percent of Americans report they are very worried about not being able to afford health care services.
- In a comparison of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use by adults in 1997 and 2002, researchers from Harvard Medical School found more than one in three U.S. adults (36.5 and 35.0 percent, respectively) used at least one form of CAM.
Sources: 2004 National Coalition on Health Care and State of CareIndex for New Mexico; January/February issue of the medical journal Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine.