As critical as I am of NM, I don’t know that this is true. The state has been funding mental healthcare for 2+ years out of gross receipts revenue. A large part of this goes to Medicaid recipients - NM is one of the highest paying states for Medicaid providers, at least for mental health. The money from this may very well go into a public coffer used for similar purposes, ultimately paying out to private providers while mostly bypassing our broken health insurance system.

I do question whether therapy services and the like are the best use of public funds for the people of NM. A lot of the state’s problems stem from a lack of economic opportunities, therapy isn’t going to help that. The state also carries a heavy burden of generational trauma which this could go some ways towards addressing, I suppose.