OPINION: NM needs to join health care worker compacts

New Mexico has a doctor shortage and there are simple solutions that will save lives. We’ve asked our readers for their stories and experiences in the state’s health care system, and they affirmed that there is a problem that is bordering on a crisis — and federal cuts to Medicaid are going to make the situation worse.

The state’s physician-to-patient ratio is one of the worst in the country, people are waiting sometimes years to establish primary care providers and rural New Mexicans and patients needing specialty care are worse off. A simple solution is for New Mexico to join most of the rest of the country in the interstate health care worker compacts, and the governor should put it on the call for the upcoming special session.

The compacts shouldn’t be controversial — they essentially make it easier for doctors and health care professionals in other states to start practicing here. That means hospitals and health care networks would have an easier time recruiting physicians.

The compacts don’t weaken medical standards, and doctors trained outside of New Mexico aren’t quacks. It simply streamlines the process for physicians who are already fully trained, vetted and licensed in another member state to help our friends and neighbors.

By joining the compacts, a doctor in El Paso, Texas, could more easily expand her office into Las Cruces. Specialists around the country could see patients in New Mexico virtually. Removing existing barriers will save lives.

In fact, New Mexico is a member of a 43-state nursing compact, but has not joined similar compacts for doctors, physical therapists, dentists, mental health counselors and audiologists. If we trust out-of-state nurses, why not physicians?

The New Mexico Legislature took up the issue during the most recent legislative session but it failed after a bill saw 32 amendments in the Senate Judiciary Committee to the point where we couldn’t have joined the compacts even if the bill had been signed into law. The issue holding the state back from joining the compacts is that New Mexico is plaintiff friendly and it’s more lucrative to sue doctors for medical malpractice here than in other states. The chairman of the committee, Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, a trial lawyer, has told us that New Mexico will never join the compacts.

But we don’t buy that.

Joining the compacts is not just a policy tweak — for rural New Mexicans, it could be a lifeline. Six to eight rural New Mexico hospitals could close over the next several years due to Medicaid changes in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” Deming, Farmington and Raton are among the parts of the state that are already facing an uphill battle to shore up their health care systems.

Let’s catch cancer early and beat the disease. Let’s deliver babies in hospitals instead of highways. Let’s manage diabetes without amputating limbs. We think that pubic opinion is on our side, and it’s only a matter of time. A motivated public fighting for the lives of their families will eventually overpower the status quo.

Last week we learned who was fighting against efforts to reform our state’s health system, and it was no surprise. The group New Mexico Safety Over Profits was court-ordered to disclose its donors after lobbying against changes to the health care system like medical malpractice reform. The group’s donors are essentially all plaintiff attorneys and firms from New Mexico and other states, who collect about 40% of the award a jury passes down to a patient after a health care provider makes a mistake.

Make no mistake, we understand that medical malpractice does happen, and patient victims should be made whole. But suing doctors isn’t the type of economic development that our state desperately needs. And these lawyers, many of them from out of state, are making hundreds of millions of dollars annually at the expense of New Mexicans’ access to health care.

The states in compacts aren’t second-guessing their benefits. Expanding the physician pool and cutting down wait times doesn’t sacrifice the quality of care. They strengthen it. We think our lawmakers should at least give it a shot. Let’s join the compacts and get healthier. What’s the worst that can happen? A mass exodus of attorneys. Given the federal changes by the GOP spending bill and our desperate need, the time to act is now.

The compacts aren’t going away and New Mexico will eventually join them — as 40 other states have. New Mexicans have had enough. Lawmakers and the governor have a simple choice: keep patients waiting or solve an urgent crisis. The right decision is obvious. The only question is how much we have to suffer before they make it.