Gov. Susana Martinez will ask state lawmakers to earmark $8 million during the coming 30-day legislative session to help take the financial pressure off New Mexico's 71 nursing homes.

Looming Medicare cuts threaten to financially squeeze the facilities, say advocates, who predict the cuts might force some nursing homes to lay off staff or close their doors.

"We cannot afford to have these nursing homes close," Martinez said Thursday. "We have to have a place for the elderly to be properly cared for as they deserve. Knowing that there were going to be these Medicare cuts, we had to plan ahead of time."

The proposed $8 million is in the Martinez administration's $5.61 billion state budget plan, which she unveiled at Santa Fe High School on Thursday.

Martinez now will have to persuade New Mexico lawmakers to include the money in the final state spending plan legislators will adopt during the session, which starts Jan. 17. The Legislature's working budget proposal, also unveiled this week, doesn't earmark the additional money for nursing homes.

New Mexico's 71 nursing homes find themselves in a financial crunch and in need of additional state dollars following a reduction in October in what the facilities receive from Medicare, the federal health care program for the elderly and disabled.

As in other states, most nursing home residents in New Mexico are enrolled in Medicaid, the government's low-income health insurance program. But the rates Medicaid pays the facilities to care for those enrollees don't cover the costs, and Medicare has made up the gap, advocates say, explaining that Medicare pays better rates than Medicaid.

In October, however, federal rules decreased the Medicare rates, straining budgets and potentially causing facilities to cut back on staff, advocates have said.

Linda Sechovec, executive director of the New Mexico Health Care Association, and other advocates have sounded the alarm about the federal cuts with state officials in recent months. On Thursday, Sechovec praised Martinez for including the nursing home money in her proposed state budget.

"We are so grateful to the administration and the governor for responding to what would have been a critical issue," Sechovec said. "This is going to take a lot of pressure off."

Sechovec and others originally had proposed a different solution to financial squeeze.

Under that plan, nursing homes would have paid a fee based on how many beds at each facility are filled by recipients of Medicaid. As of this September, nearly 3,600, or 64 percent, of the people in New Mexico's nursing homes were Medicaid recipients.

But Martinez's spokesman Scott Darnell said $8 million in direct state spending is a better alternative than what he labeled a "bed tax" on facilities. Supporters of the original idea have called the assessment a provider fee.

"This is a targeted investment that will prevent the closure of nursing homes because of federal Medicare cuts, and it's certainly a better proposal than the imposition of a bed tax that others have proposed, which would do little more than drive up the cost of these services for one of our most vulnerable populations," Darnell wrote in an email.

Contact Trip Jennings at 986-3050 or tjennings@sfnewmexican.com.