GOP lawmakers accuse chair of selecting a presenter whose data “misunderstood” New Mexico’s physician trends amid broader pressure for health reform

Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico

This article was originally published by Source New Mexico.

As New Mexico lawmakers set their sights on big legislative changes this January to address a statewide doctor shortage, Republicans on a legislative health care committee criticized the Democratic committee chair for bringing in a presenter Tuesday who provided “irrelevant” statistics supporting “biased” solutions.

Northwestern University Professor Bernard Black presented the findings of his research to members of the interim Health and Human Services Committee during its meeting in Albuquerque. His presentation argued that states that adopted medical malpractice reform, particularly caps on allowable damages, did not see significant changes in health care costs or doctor retention. 

He also argued that New Mexico has not actually seen a sharp increase in certain indicators that point to medical malpractice policy as a major factor in doctors leaving the state. When adjusted for inflation, population or other factors, he said, what appear to be increasing costs or decreasing physician counts actually become largely flat trends in New Mexico over the last three decades or so. 

When accounting for inflation, for example, the amount of medical malpractice awards per physician is not increasing, he argued, and neither is the cost of medical malpractice insurance for certain high-risk specialties.

And he also said the number of physicians is not greatly decreasing per capita, except in rural areas, which he said was “not limited to New Mexico. This is a nationwide pattern.” 

Black’s findings did not square with what committee Republicans and at least one Democrat said is happening in New Mexico. Sen. Martin Hickey (D-Albuquerque), a retired physician, dismissed out-of-hand any recommendations for New Mexico premised on the idea that the population is growing here or that doctors are not leaving. 

“It is not growing. We’re probably shrinking. The number of doctors is not increasing. In fact, we’re the only state to lose doctors, and it’s going down,” he said. “So at the core of what you’re presenting, I’m challenging.”

A recent estimate from the New Mexico Medical Society documented the departure of about 250 physicians in recent years. 

The three minutes allotted for question-and-answer prevented Black from responding to Hickey, but he did elsewhere in the presentation acknowledge gaps in the data on which he relied, including noting that some Texas data is more than 20 years old and others is best on survey data. 

“I wish we had better data. Some of the data from Texas is getting old, but it’s consistent with everything I know,” he said. 

Sen. Jay Block (R-Rio Rancho), who is on a Republican task force pushing a number of medical malpractice changes, offered to share data with Black about physician shortages. 

He was among three GOP senators who signed a news release later Tuesday denouncing Black’s presentation and contending that “progressive Democrats” such as Chair Rep. Liz Thompson (D-Albuquerque) “would rather shield trial attorneys with lies and misinformation than truly represent the needs of everyday New Mexicans who are begging for commonsense solutions to improve their access to quality healthcare.”

Still, Black defended his research, noting in the presentation that he’s published 40 peer-reviewed articles and is often cited on Google Scholar. He said he tries to use the best available information and statistical techniques to find recommendations that make him an “equal opportunity annoyer” of both Democrats and Republicans. 

Thomson said she invited Black in to provide a national perspective looking at states that had adopted medical malpractice reforms, including what changed and what didn’t.

But she and other lawmakers bemoaned what they characterized as gaps in New Mexico-specific data that would help inform lawmakers’ next steps on the issue. 

“We are kind of shooting in the dark. We do bring in national experts, because we don’t have New Mexico data, and that is just wrong,” Thomson said, before calling on her colleagues to “figure out a way so that we can get the data that we need to make intelligent responses.”

Patrick Lohmann is a reporter for Source New Mexico.