SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – Changes could be coming to who qualifies for Medicaid in the state. It comes as state leaders and healthcare experts look to push a bill this upcoming legislative session that would expand who can receive benefits from the program. This could have a big impact for hundreds of thousands of New Mexicans who can't afford health insurance, but make too much money to qualify for Medicaid. "Those are choices that we don't want New Mexicans to have to make," said New Mexico House Representative, Reena Szczepanski. The bill is expected to be introduced to the state legislature next year, and would make Medicaid cheaper, and accessible to more New Mexicans. "Basically, just expanding this great robust program to more New Mexicans," said Arika Sanchez, Healthcare Director for New Mexico Center on Law & Poverty. If approved, the bill would reduce the financial requirements for Medicaid eligibility. As the program stands, families qualify based off of income and household size and age requirement. The bill, however, would change that. Making it so anyone can access the insurance plan by paying just 5% of the household income. "This is not anything new in terms of what is the actual program," said Rep. Szczepanski. "What it is, is making sure that we can expand it so that everyone can have access to care." For example, a family of four making about $125,000 a year would pay just more than $6,000 annually under the expansion. That cost could be triple under a private insurers plan. With this change, health experts and state leaders say nearly 300,000 uninsured New Mexicans would be eligible for coverage- cutting the number of uninsured people in the state by nearly half. "There's already been a lot of state investment support from legislators, and the executive [branch] to figure out how to make this a reality," Sanchez said.