OPINION: The data has spoken: New Mexico's path to solving our doctor shortage

“Show me the data.” If you’ve attended a House Health committee meeting, it’s likely you’ve heard me say this in response to misinformation and disinformation about why New Mexico — and the country — have a health care workforce shortage. Last month, the Legislative Finance Committee, a neutral nonpartisan legislative agency, granted my request and presented the first piece to the data puzzle with a report that quantifies New Mexico’s doctor shortage in real terms.

LFC’s data is exactly what we need. It doesn’t point fingers at patient advocates and it doesn’t propose solutions that harm a patient’s access to justice. It does provide clear information. While New Mexico is in the median for our number of doctors as compared to the rest of the country and doing better than some of our neighboring states, we need 200 primary care physicians, 80 of which are needed in Bernalillo County.

New Mexico leaders have worked for years to increase access to health care, including by expanding loan forgiveness for health care workers, creating a rural health care delivery fund for providers, and creating a health care affordability fund for patients.

Now that Republicans in Washington, D.C., and President Trump have passed a federal spending bill that threatens to reverse New Mexico’s health care progress by kicking 100,000 New Mexicans off their Medicaid health insurance, these efforts are more important than ever.

LFC’s data presents us with a clear challenge. How do we get 200 additional primary care physicians in New Mexico? Below are actionable steps my colleagues and I have been working on and will continue to do so.

• Pay clinicians enough to attract and retain them in New Mexico.
• Help physicians pay their student loan debt. The average debt of medical school graduates now hovers around $205,000. With a $41 million one-time budget appropriation, the state could fully pay off the student loans of the roughly 200 doctors we need to close the gap.
• Pass a strategic recruitment bill, like the one sponsored by my colleague, Rep. Marianna Anaya, D-Albuquerque, last session, to get our University of New Mexico Medical School graduates to come back home, by helping them get credentialed, licensed, find their dream job, housing and more.
• Assist providers with their down payment to buy a home in New Mexico. When people own a home, they’re more likely to stay. My colleague Rep. Kathleen Cates, D-Rio Rancho, has a proposal that would help.
• Ensure that all state-backed financial incentives directly benefit providers, instead of out-of-state medical corporations, where those incentives all too often evaporate into executive bonuses and shareholder dividends before reaching providers.

The political theater around this issue has grown stale. Real families in rural communities are watching their physicians retire without replacement, expectant parents are driving hours for check ups, and people with chronic conditions are suffering while they sit on weeks-long waitlists to see specialists.

Now, the gutting of Medicaid makes it more important and urgent than ever that we stop debating phantom problems and focus our attention on the real challenge: ensuring every New Mexican has timely access to quality medical care.

The data has spoken. Now we must listen — and act.