EDITORIAL: New Mexico Safety Over Profits needs to take a stand on health care worker compacts

New Mexico Safety Over Profits built its identity around a simple premise: Public safety should come before corporate interests in health care.

The group, which is funded primarily by plaintiff attorneys, speaks forcefully against reforming the state’s medical malpractice laws, saying that tort reform would make it more difficult for victims of malpractice to find justice. However, the group says it hasn’t taken a stance on New Mexico joining more than 40 other states in health care worker compacts. For a group that claims to advocate for patients in New Mexico, that makes its silence striking — and troubling.

The compacts allow doctors and other licensed health care professionals to practice across state lines more easily while maintaining oversight and disciplinary authority through state boards. For New Mexico — chronically short of physicians, especially in rural and underserved communities — the stakes could not be higher. Allowing more doctors to practice here or patients to see specialists through telehealth would have immediate and measurable health benefits.

The Journal Editorial Board recently met with NMSOP leaders, and we tried to pin them down on whether or not they would advocate for joining the compacts. They gave us no endorsement. No opposition. No understandable explanation. For a group that presents itself as a watchdog over health care policy in the name of patient safety, that absence speaks loudly.

“I think for us, the sort of reason we haven’t necessarily taken a position is because we’re unsure that it’s going to move the dial on the shortage in terms of how the compacts function,” NMSOP Executive Director Johana Bencomo told us.

The compacts are not a new issue. Lawmakers for years have debated joining them, and bills have been introduced that would allow the state to do so. A bill that would have allowed New Mexico to join physician and other health care worker compacts stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year. Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, and a plaintiff attorney, chairs the committee.

Cid Lopez, an attorney and part of NMSOP, said that a “big shot” at a major hospital in Albuquerque told him that hospitals don’t want to join the medical compacts because New Mexico doctors would be upset because physicians in other states make more money than them.

We were a little confused why a patient advocacy group is concerned about a physician’s paycheck to the point that the group wouldn’t want more health care professionals here.

The compact question cuts directly to the organization’s stated mission, which is to help all of us have better access to quality health care. Supporters argue that the compacts are a simple way to expand access to care without lowering professional standards. Opponents counter that interstate medical practice would erode local accountability. Reasonable people want New Mexico to join the compacts.

Not taking a position on the matter isn’t neutrality — it’s malpractice.

Advocacy groups like NMSOP lose credibility by not weighing in on politically uncomfortable issues. We get it, NMSOP is going to fight against tort reform. The group, after a court order, revealed that it is financed almost entirely by plaintiff attorneys who have a clear incentive to keep the status quo in the legal system. They earn a living filing lawsuits against doctors, and they don’t want to tip the scale away from their favor. But why can’t we all accept that faster access to providers is worth accepting a regulatory structure that the vast majority of states agree to? Can’t patient safety exist with mobility in a national health care workforce?

This is not an issue that a group that claims patient safety as its north star can ignore.

Silence has consequences. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has spoken in favor of joining the compacts, and she successfully got the Legislature to at least study it during a recent special session. Democratic gubernatorial candidates Sam Bregman, Ken Miyagishima and Deb Haaland have said publicly that they support joining the health care worker compacts. Miyagishima has said he’s also in favor of tort reform.

We, as a board, have said that we want New Mexico to join the compacts. Our position hasn’t changed.

New Mexico deserves an honest, substantive debate about the interstate medical compacts. Too many of us have struggled to find a specialist or have loved ones who are in dire need of care. We’ve published op-eds from families who had to drive to Texas just to telehealth with a physician practicing in another state. An advocacy group claiming to support patients owes us all more than silence.

To be fair, Bencomo, a city councilor and mayor pro-tem of Las Cruces, is new to the position. But if she wants to continue saying that she is an advocate for patients — and not just plaintiff attorneys — she needs to research the issue and take a position. So write us an op-ed saying why you are for or against the compacts.

We’ll print it right here.

This editorial was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the editorial board rather than the writers.