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Higher ed and ‘playtime for adults’

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

I’m going to tell you a story about entitlement, misuse of public money, poor judgment, and fuzzy ethics. The only reason we know about it is because one journalist, doing his job, brought it to the public eye. Other media outlets followed suit and the State Auditor investigated. It’s now before the state Ethics Commission.

A year ago Joshua Bowling at the online Searchlight New Mexico broke this story: Since 2018, Western New Mexico University President Joseph Shepard had spent nearly $100,000 on travel to Zambia, Spain and Greece to recruit international students and their higher tuition dollars. With him at times were other university executives, members of the WNMU Board of Regents and his wife, former spy, author and congressional candidate Valerie Plame.

“All have traveled on the university’s dime,” Bowling wrote.

Also, Shepard spent nearly $28,000 in university money at a high-end Santa Fe store to furnish his on-campus house. It was necessary for entertaining potential donors, he told Bowling. “The president’s house has to look presidential. People expect it.”

The university tab has included $12,000 to lease a 5,400-square-foot home in Santa Fe for two months and $25,500 to send six people to the Ritz-Carlton Rancho Mirage, a resort in Palm Springs, California, for a seminar that was also available online.

WNMU has 3,500 students; 64 of them are foreign. Silver City’s economy depends on copper mining, tourism and the college. The median income of its 9,300 population is $21,000, and nearly 30% of its people are poor.

Regents have raised Shepard’s salary by $87,000 to $365,000 since 2020.

And they’ve ignored two red flags.

In 2019, the school’s financial director resigned. Cheryl Hain told Bowling: “As a director of financial aid who can go to jail for the s--- the school is doing… this is not worth the risk to me. Our taxpayers are funding playtime for adults.”

In 2018 the vice president of business affairs, Brenda Findley, sued regents over Shepard’s “improprieties.” He ordered raises for employees he liked and directed university janitors to clean his house, run errands, cook meals and do laundry. When Findley complained, he fired her. Regents settled the lawsuit in June with a payout to Findley.

The Silver City Daily Press published the Searchlight story, along with a response from Shepard justifying the spending. It also reported on a crowded regents’ meeting in which many defended Shepard and criticized the Searchlight story as sensational and unfair. Searchlight then said the newspaper could no longer use Searchlight material.

The Santa Fe New Mexican chimed in early this year, reporting that the state Higher Education Department chastised Shepard in a letter for not performing a cost-benefit analysis on overseas travel spending and for issuing a state procurement card to his famous wife, who is not an employee. The department suggested suspending overseas travel until the benefits could be determined. WNMU regents blew off the department. Their lawyer wrote back that WNMU was not part of state government. Translation: We don’t answer to you.

Next the State Auditor began investigating and on Nov. 19 stated that between 2018 and 2023, WNMU violated its own policies with $363,525.99 in wasteful and improper spending. The auditor’s report got wide news coverage.Regents claim to be addressing the auditor’s “strong concerns,” but on a performance review last summer they gave Shepard high marks plus a $50,000 bonus. And they’ve ordered an independent audit. Wait, isn’t that what the State Auditor has already done?

Here we see two kinds of journalism. Searchlight dug into the numbers of a small-town institution and wielded an outsider’s objectivity. The Daily Press covers WNMU every day and sees the institution’s shades of gray.

At a time when real journalism is under fire, both approaches serve an informed readership.

Project 2025 and the new look of disaster recovery

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

In Roswell’s newly opened FEMA office, people who lost homes and vehicles in October flooding and people who are still trying to get the mold and muck out of their living quarters hope the government will help them get back on their feet.

In Ruidoso FEMA ensnared flood and fire victims with red tape. And Northern New Mexico’s fire and flood victims are still waiting for payments.

The nation’s disaster relief agency has its problems, but if you’ve just lost everything, FEMA is your only hope. Now FEMA and the whole mission of disaster recovery are in for big changes in the new administration.

The president-elect campaigned on reduced spending, and his allies at the Heritage Foundation wrote a plan for that in Project 2025. The 922-page document calls for “reforming FEMA emergency spending to shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government.”

Ken Cuccinelli, a former Trump Homeland Security official who wrote the section on FEMA, has said, “People think of it as a first responder. It’s not a first responder.”

In Project 2025 he wrote: “FEMA is the lead federal agency in preparing for and responding to disasters, but it is overtasked, overcompensates for the lack of state and local preparedness and response, and is regularly in deep debt.”

Since 1988 the number of declared federal disasters rose and most costs were shifted from states and local governments to the federal government, according to Project 2025. Now FEMA is “unprepared in both readiness and funding for the truly catastrophic disasters in which its services are most needed.”

Project 2025 wants FEMA to “focus on large, widespread disasters” and stop doling out money for smaller disasters. The document doesn’t define smaller disasters, but the focus is on hurricanes that devastate vast areas, and not the localized events in Roswell, Dexter or Ruidoso. Note to New Mexicans: There is no mention of fires.

Project 2025 suggests a deductible, which would incentivize states “to take a more proactive role in their own preparedness and response capabilities.”

And Congress should reverse the cost-share so that the federal government covers 25 percent of costs for small disasters and up to 75% for “truly catastrophic disasters.”

Every New Mexican caught up in fires and floods considers them truly catastrophic, and not every community has the resources to respond. Ruidoso, for example, needs help to replace bridges. Small towns hit by disasters of any size will be hard pressed to recover without federal and state help.

Project 2025 would also pull the plug on the National Flood Insurance Program, which provides most of the nation’s flood insurance because private flood insurance isn’t affordable in many places. (KOB-TV reported just 252 policies in Lincoln County.)

Government subsidies and bailouts “encourage more development in flood zones, increasing the potential losses” to the program and the taxpayer. Project 2025 would replace it “with private insurance starting with the least risky areas.”

Problem is, the insurance industry isn’t interested; the disasters are bigger, claims are beyond the industry’s capacity to pay, and premiums are unaffordable.

Project 2025 isn’t wrong in wanting to curtail costs. FEMA is still trying to repay billions it borrowed in 2017, according to Politico’s E&E News. Skyrocketing costs for this year recently prompted President Joe Biden to ask Congress to shore up the disaster relief fund.

FEMA, under both the Obama and Trump administrations, proposed reducing the flow of money to states after smaller weather events. In fact, Project 2025 revives an Obama-era proposal to incentivize states to reduce future damage by tightening building codes. The proposal died because states didn’t like it.

FEMA needs to address its costs, and states need to step up. But reformers should tell disaster victims why some are more deserving of help than others.

Days of the Mama Lucy Gang and Cowboy Coalition

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

In 1984 New Mexico voters took a turn to the right, sending more moderates and conservatives of both parties to the Legislature. Back then the parties entertained a greater range of ideas.

After voters had spoken, conservatives had a new opportunity take back the House. Rep. Jerry Sandel, a conservative Democrat from Farmington, became the swing vote that unseated House Speaker Raymond Sanchez, D-Albuquerque, and replaced him with Rep. Gene Samberson, D-Lovington.

Last month, Sandel died at 82 in Farmington, where his family has operated Aztec Well Servicing and related companies for decades. He was 28 when he was elected to the Legislature, one of the youngest members of the House, and served from 1971 to 2000.

In the 1970s the Mama Lucy Gang controlled the House until around 1978, when the Cowboy Coalition took power, setting off a struggle between left and right in the state that defied party lines. The Mama Lucy Gang, the liberal and mostly Hispanic coalition, took its name from a Las Vegas restaurant where they occasionally met. The Cowboys, mostly Anglos who lived outside the Rio Grande corridor, were moderates and conservatives of both parties. They elected Samberson house speaker in 1978.

In 1982, with a swing of the voters’ pendulum, the Mama Lucy Gang was back in power. Samberson was out, and Sanchez, a young lawyer, was again speaker.

In 1984 Sandel addressed “what top Democrats have called a slow, leftward drift by the party away from its base,” wrote Albuquerque Tribune political reporter Dan Vukelich. “That drift has alienated many conservative Democrats.”

Sandel said he wanted to see more moderates in the Democratic Party hierarchy, as well as leaders who were not from Albuquerque or Northern New Mexico. That year the pendulum swung back to the right and sent five Republicans to the House.

When House members chose their new speaker, they had a choice between the liberal Sanchez, the moderate Tom Brown of Artesia, and Samberson. Sandel tipped the vote to Samberson.

The Cowboys’ reign ended with another pendulum swing in 1986. The Carlsbad Current-Argus headline announced, “Cowboys Out, Liberals In.” In an editorial, the newspaper observed: “What made the coalition viable is that many rural areas of the state, although predominantly Democrat according to registration and represented by Democrats, are more attuned to conservative political philosophy, ‘pay-as-you-go government.’ Therefore these conservative Democrats threw in with the Republicans to gain control.”

Jerry Sandel, during his 30 years as a legislator, would go on to chair the powerful budget and tax committees, where he was known for a steady hand in steering difficult, contentious meetings. He worked easily with both sides of the aisle and never lost a floor vote on any of his bills. He knew more about New Mexico tax law than anyone else in the Roundhouse.

He always called himself a conservative Democrat and never felt the need to explain that, even when pressed by former Republican Party Chairman John Dendahl, who in the late 1990s tried to talk Sandel into changing parties. By then his House district was the most Republican-voting district represented by a Democrat in the United States. Sandel lost his election in 2000.

One-time adversary Raymond Sanchez said, “The people of San Juan County did more to hurt the state of New Mexico with this vote than they’ll ever know. Jerry Sandel… was a resource for the entire state.” Sanchez himself also lost his election.

It was a stunning outcome. I quoted House Majority Whip Danice Picraux telling business leaders, “Every economic tax incentive was supported, molded and pushed by Jerry Sandel and Speaker Sanchez. They could bring everyone along.”

Such is politics. New speakers and new tax experts would come along. But that year heralded the devaluing of moderates – or anybody who didn’t march in lockstep with their parties. New Mexico is poorer for it.

Election aftermath demands journalistic reset

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Two words, “according to,” may be the most important words in any news story you read.

Journalists are trained to seek out the best, most knowledgeable sources. As a business writer I had certain go-to people I could call who knew their stuff, had their fingers on good data, and could give me an accurate, understandable response. They had earned my trust because of their background, experience and personal honesty. I earned their trust by reporting accurately what they said.

Accuracy is big. I remember a workshop for reporters in which the speaker practically shouted at us, “Get it right!” I still have her voice in my head. For decades I started interviews with, “Spell your name for me,” even if I was interviewing Jane Smith. Misspell your subject’s name and your credibility nosedives.

Accuracy’s sister is objectivity. Reporters have to set aside their feelings and opinions and just report the news. I experienced this as almost a physical thing – stepping outside myself to ask questions, hear answers and try to understand all sides of a problem so I could report on it fairly. It’s not easy.

You’ve probably seen reporting that wasn’t as objective as it should have been. But in my experience, reporters, with a few exceptions, tried hard to report fairly and accurately. In fact, objectivity is so ingrained in many journalists that it’s downright uncomfortable for them to write an opinion. It’s why I have trouble recruiting writers for this small opinion column service.

Opinions. That’s what you’re reading right now. Opinion columns run in clearly marked newspaper opinion pages and are not mixed in with news. It sets us apart from other media and the internet.

During the nation’s colonial days, small, crude newspapers informed citizens about the Tea Tax Act and the American Revolution as it was unfolding. Reporting and journalistic ethics evolved as they covered government, wars, economic downturns and politicians. Founding fathers recognized newspapers’ power to shine a light in dark places and protected them with the First Amendment. The Virginia Declaration of Rights called freedom of the press “one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty.”

That said, I’m not blind to the abuses and incompetence that drag down my industry, and now it’s also struggling to swim in the fast current of the internet.

Online you can a find a mind boggling amount of useful information as well as a mind numbing amount of misinformation (information with unintended errors) and disinformation (information intended to deceive). That fire hose of facts, entertainment, beliefs, complaints, speculation and lies should make us all information consumers. Very little of it is qualified by an “according to.” We don’t know where much of it comes from, and so we have to choose carefully what to believe.

Years ago I participated in a conference whose organizers wanted to educate readers about the media. Many of the speakers were foreign journalists who complained their governments were deliberately sowing lies to confuse citizens and undermine the work of the media. An uninformed citizenry is an easily led citizenry. That couldn’t happen here, we thought.

And yet, long before this election, we’ve been swamped with disinformation originating internally and from Russia, China and Iran whose goal is to keep us fighting amongst ourselves and keep us in disarray. The response has been to meet the gusher of disinformation with facts, but it’s an unfair fight.

Disinformation requires no work, just an outlet. Debunk one piece of disinformation, and 20 more spring up.

In this election, one of the losers was conventional reporting. We can’t just blame attacks and slurs like “lamestream media” that undermined our credibility. The present wave of analysis includes disinformation, but it should also include journalism.

I still believe Americans need facts and objective reporting. I salute the journalists still fighting the good fight. But we too must do some navel gazing and a lot more explaining.

Post election we still have to live with each other

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Not long ago, I drove to Colorado and Wyoming to visit family members I hadn’t seen in a few years. It was mostly a social visit, although I’ve been working on the family history and genealogy and wanted to gather more information.

I figured politics might come up. We may share genes, but we don’t share political beliefs. Still, I was curious about what they were thinking and why.My cousins and I are pretty different people. I was the first on both sides to go to college. Some cousins are high school dropouts, and others graduated from high school. They’ve all done well because they’re smart, they work hard, and they’re good humored and outgoing.

Two days into my visit I had a small health scare. Cousin Randy called his brother Dean, who had been an EMT and knew what to do. Dean took my pulse and looked at my eyes and asked me questions. Yes, I knew where I was. Yes, I knew what day it was. They watched me carefully, and Dean chatted reassuringly. When my equilibrium returned they got me up off the floor and walked me to the bathroom.

At that point, I didn’t care who they were voting for.

Besides the gene pool, we are bound together by the lives of our mothers, the two youngest of five sisters. They were the last ones living at home when my grandfather shot himself on the front porch in 1934. Their mother was 15; mine was 12. Our families have struggled with the fallout from that tragedy without really understanding it. One purpose of the trip was to share information from my family research to help explain our mothers’ behavior and mental state over the years so we could all understand that a suicide isn’t just an isolated event – it radiates pain and trauma for generations.

So elections will come and go. These relationships and our shared histories are more important than our political differences.

As I write this, it’s a couple of days ahead of Election Day. Whichever way this election goes, we still have to live with each other. That’s the thing I’m really worried about.

We know we’re polarized. We hear about relationships shattered over political beliefs. It’s all personal, and maybe some of those relationships were problematic for other reasons. I made a decision that I am not going to banish a friend or relative from my life over politics.

That’s because we still need each other, we need to talk to each other, and it’s easier to talk to people we know.

Bonnie Kristian, an editor at Christianity Today, recently wrote that polarization won’t just go away, but that’s not cause for despair. Our differences matter, but they’re not all that matters, she writes, “and they do not determine how we treat each other.”

How we treat each other. The political dialogue has been brutal, but we don’t have to talk this way to each other.

On Halloween hundreds of people come through the neighborhood. Our neighbors were welcoming to them. The kids were polite, thanked us and wished us a Happy Halloween. It was a welcome little vacation from politics and a reminder that kindness is a word away.

We have many opportunities to interact with each other in positive ways. And as we interact, there will be opportunities for serious conversations, not as political adversaries but as people shaped by life experience.

Tania Israel, author and psychology professor, has said liberals and conservatives "tend to view (each) other as being more extreme than they actually are." She proposes more listening, less trying to convince, and a dose of intellectual humility. Do this in person, she says, not on the internet. Campaigns like those we’ve just endured diminish everyone’s humanity. We need to reclaim our humanity, conversation by conversation.

Another community faces high costs of disaster recovery

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

As news spread about a freak storm in Roswell that dumped nearly six inches of rain in as many hours, we worried about people and places. My husband was living in Roswell when I met him, and I’d visited many times.

Safe in a dry house, we were talking about this disaster when it occurred to us: We’re all vulnerable. Before, we could watch the news about fires and hurricanes, but if you don’t live in the mountains or on the coast, it’s a bit removed. The Roswell flood brings climate change to everyone’s front porch.

Roswell City Manager Chad Cole said recently that it would take years for his city to recover, reported the Roswell Daily Record. “We are looking at hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure and facilities. I mean it. I’m not sugar coating it.”

The Record, which is making its online edition available free as the city digs out, also reported that state and federal officials were on hand. The governor has declared an emergency, and that step released $1 million, which is something of a down payment for future projects. A disaster declaration from the president will release more money.

FEMA was going door to door, the city posted on Facebook. I’ve been among the agency’s critics in the past, but with new management in New Mexico it appears Roswell won’t suffer the bureaucratic neglect we saw in Mora and the northern mountains after the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon fires.

Even so, people may have to adjust their expectations. For years there’s been a belief that after a disaster the government will make you whole. Nope. They will help, but nobody is going to make you whole. And the help they provide will take longer than suffering residents might wish.

Disaster funding begins with local government, which is the first responder. Large-scale destruction and its higher costs will quickly involve the state, which works with local governments to pay for what it can, often immediate response as well as longer term recovery. When disasters outstrip the resources of local and state governments, the federal government steps in. But as costs have spiraled, feds have asked states to take more responsibility. A FEMA director said in 2019 that federal spending on natural disasters was unsustainable.

This is all according to a 2020 report by The Pew Charitable Trusts, which studied how states pay for disaster recovery. New Mexico and many other states have disaster accounts, as well as rainy day or reserve funds, said the report. States can also appropriate money or budget for disaster needs.

Notice they mention “rainy day” funds. We don’t like that term in New Mexico. We’re rightfully proud of our permanent funds, and policy makers don’t want us to think the permanent funds are easily accessible. Early childhood education advocates moved heaven and earth to tap some of that money. We may have to think about something similar if the federal government becomes hard-nosed about its disaster spending.

Our candidates didn’t want to talk about this as they campaigned, but we’re overdue for a frank discussion. Michael Coleman, a spokesman for the governor (who is not running for office) hinted at it when he told Source New Mexico that natural disasters stemming from climate change are increasing in number and intensity.

“The more of these events we experience as a state, and as a nation, the more our collective resources for responding will be stretched thin,” he said. “We must fortify our infrastructure and make it more resilient against damaging and sometimes catastrophic weather events.”

At times like these, it may seem cold to talk about recovery costs, but some realistic planning will assure that governments can respond to disasters down the road.

Bipartisan Index shows which members of Congress work across the aisle

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Entertainer-turned-politician Kinky Friedman was asked in 2006 about getting the Democrats and Republicans to work together. He responded, "I'm running for governor, not God." After months of political advertising that’s more punishing than enlightening, the likelihood of anybody working together to get something done seems remote, despite all their fine language about “reaching across the aisle.”

And yet, sometimes they do. There’s even a measure of how often this happens in Congress.

In 2015 two organizations created the Bipartisan Index to rank how often members of Congress work across party lines. The Lugar Center and Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy said at the time that “hyper-partisanship has frequently paralyzed congressional decision-making and led both Republicans and Democrats to fail the most basic tests of governance.”

The Bipartisan Index looks at how often a member co-sponsors a bill that was introduced by the other party and how often a member introduces a bill that attracts co-sponsors from the other party. “The aim of the Index is to highlight members’ willingness to get results, regardless of party,” wrote the two founders, former Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, and Edward Montgomery, dean of the McCourt School.

New Mexico’s congressional delegations since 2015 have been mostly in the middle, but former Reps. Yvette Herrell, Republican, and Michelle Lujan Grisham, Democrat, notched the two worst rankings.

In the most recent index (118th Congress, first session, in 2023), Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a Democrat, ranked 117thof 436 representatives. Fellow Dems Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez and Rep. Melanie Stansbury were 315th and 373rd. First on the national list that period was Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-PA; at the bottom was Rep. Jim Jordan, R-OH. Next to last was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY.

(Some lawmakers are not ranked because they’ve served briefly. Majority and minority leaders are also excluded.)

In the 117th Congress (2021-2022), Rep. Yvette Herrell ranked 425th of 441. Leger Fernandez and Stansbury were 223rd and 226th. Herrell was not far from Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-CO, who was last, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA, who was next to last.

The Senate is a different story, with the state’s two senators maintaining respectable rankings. In the most recent index Sen. Ben Ray Lujan was 36th of 98 senators ranked, and Sen. Martin Heinrich was 56th. In first place was Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME; in last place was Sen. Katie Britt, R-AL. What can we learn here?

Gabe Vasquez scored his 117th place after redistricting transformed the shape of CD2, leaving it competitive with a slight tilt toward Democrats. Still, Vasquez’s score indicates he wasn’t taking political survival for granted and was out to show he could work with both sides. The lowest ranking for a New Mexican from 2021 to 2023 belongs to Herrell, who served her term before redistricting, when CD2 was more Republican. She and other occupants of the list’s lower reaches apparently didn’t feel a need to cross the aisle.

Ben Ray Lujan, in the House and the Senate, has steadily improved his rank, meaning that he has found more opportunities to work with Republicans. Lujan has regularly scored above Heinrich, and Heinrich’s rankings have been in the middle.

Fun facts: In the 115th Congress, Rep. Steve Pearce, who today is Republican Party chairman, ranked 265th, and Lujan Grisham, now governor, ranked 357th. In the 114thCongress, Pearce ranked 289th, and Lujan Grisham ranked 300th. In the 113th Congress, Lujan Grisham ranked 284th, and Pearce ranked 351st.

The Bipartisan Index is one more bite of information in a smorgasbord of analysis. But if you’re tired of congressional gridlock and want to know who will reach out to the other party, the index can help.

We must take care of our rural hospitals

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Last year three small New Mexico hospitals had only enough cash on hand to last a few days. That situation has improved a bit, said Troy Clark, president and CEO of the New Mexico Hospital Association, but four hospitals still have just 20 days of cash on hand. Others are losing money.

"We must take care of our rural facilities," he said.

Patients in rural areas are older, poorer and sicker; their hospitals rely more on Medicaid than on private insurance or other sources, and Medicaid reimburses them below cost.

Legislators threw rural hospitals a lifeline in this year's session by passing the Healthcare Delivery and Access Act (HDAA). It allows the state to tax hospitals, pool the money and use it to receive a larger Medicaid match. The state will then distribute the larger sum among New Mexico's hospitals as Medicaid reimbursement. It requires no state funding.

Large hospitals agreed to pay more to help rural hospitals. If a small hospital fails or can't meet local needs, it adds to the demand on larger facilities, which are already operating over their capacity. Our hospitals really are all in this together.

"When those small hospitals do well, the entire hospital ecosystem does well," said Clark, who spent 17 years running small hospitals.

"The HDAA... was monumental," Clark said told the Legislative Health and Human Services Committee recently, and the association's 47 member hospitals are grateful.

The new law isn't a genie in a lamp, but many administrators can take a deep breath and envision having money for staff recruiting and retention or new equipment or employee education. The hardest hit hospital, Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital in Gallup, could receive up to $18 million after paying $1.9 million in tax.

Clark said they are still waiting for federal approval to start the program.While that's welcome progress, it's not the top concern for the state's hospitals. At the top of the list is access to care, and that means staffing. In fact, Clark argues that New Mexico's number one issue is not crime but access to care.

Baby boomers, who outnumber all other age groups, have aged into the segment that now requires more healthcare, and they’re driving demand. Right now postings for nurses statewide total 8,800. For comparison, Albuquerque’s three biggest hospitals employ 6,200 nurses. And the hospital workforce is short in all positions, not just doctors and nurses.

One bizarre twist to this worker shortage is the use of hyper-expensive air ambulances simply because EMTs and paramedics are in such short supply. Clark said 67% of air ambulance trips in the state aren’t justified, but there’s no other option. For that reason and the fact that insurance companies drag their feet on authorizations, patients may stay longer in costly hospital beds (that somebody else needs) instead of being moved to another facility for after care.

"Growing our own is critical," he said. "The entire nation has a workforce shortage."

Clark told the committee that other healthcare bills will be introduced in the next session, "but if they don’t improve access to healthcare they should be set aside."

As he delivered the hospitals' message, Think New Mexico released its 10-point plan to increase healthcare staffing.

The bipartisan think tank reported that the number of primary care physicians in New Mexico fell by 30% from 2017 to 2021, and the numbers of ob-gyns, nurses, dentists, psychiatrists, pharmacists, and EMTs also declined sharply in recent years.

"New Mexico has the oldest physician workforce in the nation, with nearly 40% of the state’s doctors aged 60 or older and expected to retire by 2030," the group reported.

Think New Mexico's plan includes malpractice reform, better student loan programs, friendlier tax policies for healthcare workers, and higher Medicaid reimbursement rates. (See thinknm.org.)

This is the state of healthcare in New Mexico. Talk to your legislators.

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