Thank you for your tremendous response to our recent calls to action!
As of this morning, New Mexicans like you have sent more than 2,700 emails through our Action Center to legislators and the governor urging them to pass the interstate compacts for health care workers during the special session that starts at noon today. Your personal stories sharing the struggles you have faced accessing health care in New Mexico, and explaining how joining the interstate compacts would ease that burden, have made an impact. (Special thanks to the many Indivisible chapters across the state whose members have been so active on this issue - and there's still time to send in your message if you haven't already!)
Since last we wrote, all three Democratic candidates for governor have called for New Mexico to join the compacts, adding their voices to Governor Lujan Grisham, House Democrats, House Republicans, and Senate Republicans.
The disappointing news is that Senate Democrats remain opposed to passing the compacts during this week's special session.
Moreover, based on the responses that you've received from various senators and shared with us, we've been able to piece together their endgame strategy, and it could doom the compacts - not just now, but in the future.
In brief, Senate Democratic leaders are now saying that they intend to appoint a "work group" to rewrite the doctor compact, and possibly the social worker compact, for the next regular legislative session in January. This raises three major red flags:
First, waiting until January means that New Mexico is sacrificing federal dollars for rural hospitals by not joining the compacts before our application for funding is due next month. New Mexico could receive a higher point score on our application for federal support if we join four of the compacts now. As Christina Campos, former Administrator of the Guadalupe County Hospital, explains in today's Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico's rural hospitals are stretched to the breaking point, and every penny counts.
Second, the plan leaves eight major compacts on the cutting room floor. New Mexicans will continue to miss out on opportunities to access care from dentists, physician assistants, psychologists, counselors, physical therapists, audiologists and speech therapists, and emergency medical personnel licensed in other states - all fields where New Mexico has serious shortages.
Finally, this plan raises the very real possibility that the Senate Democratic leadership does not intend to pass the compacts at all, because if we rewrite the compacts, New Mexico will not be allowed to participate.
Compacts are contracts among states, and all states must agree to the same terms. Forty-three states have signed onto the doctor compact. It is not realistic to ask all of those state legislatures to enact new versions of their compact laws to accommodate the preferences of a handful of New Mexico legislators.
Troublingly, we are hearing that the Senate "work group" will be led by Senator Katy Duhigg, one of the three Senate opponents of the compacts (all of whom are trial lawyers). Senator Duhigg led the charge to make 32 amendments to the doctor compact in the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year, despite the general counsel of the compact testifying that doing so would prevent New Mexico from participating.
It would be a devastating outcome for New Mexicans if the Senate rewrites the compact in ways that make it impossible for the compact commission and other participating states to accept - and then passes it anyway. Then when New Mexico is predictably turned down for membership, Senate Democrats would blame the compact commission.
This would please the trial lawyers who claim they no longer oppose the compacts but consistently criticize them in the media (like this article in today's Santa Fe New Mexican), but it would result in ongoing harm to New Mexicans who have to delay care and travel out of state as we remain one of just seven states that doesn't participate in the doctor compact.
Bottom line: there is no need to wait, and no reason to rewrite a compact that must be passed in its entirety.
The special session begins in a few hours, and it is not too late to pass the compacts this week. Please keep the pressure on your legislators: let them know that it is time to stop playing political games, and focus on increasing access to health care for New Mexicans.
Fred, Kristina, Susan, Mandi, Katie, Lauren, and Noah
Think New Mexico
