New Mexico's rural hospitals would be barred from attempting to collect unpaid bills from patients who make less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, and are looking at a 25-to-30 percent cut in indigent care funds under a funding bill moving its way through the state Legislature. Senate Bill 268, which addresses the indigent care funding problem for the state's 29 rural hospitals, was approved by the state Senate Sunday. But lawmakers opted to reduce gross receipts tax funding that counties must contribute to hospital indigent care from one-eighth of a cent to one-sixteenth of a cent.
