Top Senate Democrat opposed to adding medical compacts to special session mix

SANTA FE — Despite bipartisan calls for action, New Mexico’s top Senate Democrat said Tuesday he remains opposed to including interstate medical compacts on the agenda for an upcoming special session.

Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, said the fact that states’ participation in medical compacts is among the scoring criteria for a $50 billion rural health fund distributed by the federal government should not prompt a knee-jerk response.

“Health care policy should not be held hostage to short-term grant deadlines,” Wirth, a lawyer by profession, said in a statement. “Making permanent changes to professional licensing standards based on temporary funding availability and an ever-changing set of rules coming from the federal government sets a dangerous precedent.”

He also said lawmakers need to further study how the medical compacts would interact with existing state laws before the start of a 30-day legislative session in January. At least some of the compacts have been before the Legislature since 2019, however, so legislators have had multiple years to consider the issue.

Meanwhile, Wirth’s comments came one day after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham reiterated her preference to include the compacts in the agenda for the special session that is scheduled to begin Oct. 1.

“I want the compacts,” the governor said during a news conference at the state Capitol. “I proposed them on the very front end.”

But Lujan Grisham has explained she agreed to delay consideration of the medical compacts until the 30-day session as part of an agreement with top Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate.

As part of that agreement, leading legislators agreed to fast-track some bills to the governor’s desk during the regular session. That could include bills dealing with juvenile crime, road funding and immigration detention facilities, in addition to the medical compacts.

The governor has not yet issued the proclamation that details which issues legislators are allowed to take up during the special session, and she said she plans to continue lobbying lawmakers to include the compacts on the agenda over the coming week.

However, she indicated she would not ultimately include the compact bills on the agenda if Senate Democratic leaders remain opposed.

“I worry there are so many trial lawyer leaders in the Senate that it gets caught there,” Lujan Grisham said.

That was an apparent reference to Democratic senators like Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces and Katy Duhigg of Albuquerque, who both hold Senate committee chairmanships and have expressed misgivings about the medical compacts.

The interstate medical compacts allow doctors and specialists to treat patients who live in other states via the use of telehealth or in-person visits. Advocates say joining the compacts would help alleviate a longstanding health care provider shortage in New Mexico.

The state is currently only a member of one such compact — the one for nurses — and 10 bills approving membership in compacts for doctors, counselors and physical therapists stalled in the Senate during this year’s 60-day legislative session due to some senators’ concerns about legal sovereignty and patient safety.

Lujan Grisham said she understands those concerns to a point, but expressed frustration and disappointment in Senate Democrats’ resistance to approving the compacts.

New Mexico is currently one of only seven states that has not passed legislation to join the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact for doctors, though implementation is still pending in several states.

“If you have no doctors here and nobody can get in, I don’t see how you make the argument that you’re leaning in to patient safety,” Lujan Grisham said this week.

Meanwhile, several legislators expressed a sense of urgency about approving the medical compacts during a legislative hearing Tuesday in Hobbs.

Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, suggested lawmakers might be losing out on federal funds if legislators do not sign off on the compacts before the end of this year.

“If the Legislature chooses to leave $100 million a year on the table, that may be a key issue,” said Muñoz, who is the Legislative Finance Committee’s vice chairman.

That dollar figure estimate was in reference to the federal rural health care funding that New Mexico plans to apply for with the help of an outside consultant. All state applications are due by Nov. 5.

In addition to membership in medical compacts, other criteria the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have established for scoring states’ applications include total size, percent of population in rural areas and percentage of hospitals that receive Medicaid funding.

Most of the compact bills passed the House of Representatives during this year’s session, and House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, recently indicated the House could move quickly to pass them again.

Meanwhile, top Republican legislators have called on the governor to include the medical compacts and other hot-button issues on the special session agenda.

Lujan Grisham said GOP legislators’ criticism about being excluded from the special session deliberations was fair, but said Democrats’ current majorities in both legislative chambers puts them in position to ultimately decide the outcome of any proposals.

“They get to sort of decide, fair or unfair,” the governor said.