Having already proposed a massive expansion of the federal role in health care as part of his presidential campaign, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is also looking to reform New Mexico's health care system. So far, all we really know about his state-level plan is that he wants "universal coverage."

Nonetheless, there is going to be a major push for single-payer care in New Mexico and the consultants from a firm called Mathematica used what their own analysts called "heroic assumptions" (whatever that means) to determine that in its first year, socialized medicine would save New Mexicans between $63 million and $209 million.

A new study by David Hogberg of the Rio Grande Foundation pokes holes in Mathematica's analysis and finds that rather than saving money, a single-payer system would result in higher costs and rationing of services as has occurred in other countries.