Fall Zoom Series Off to a Great Start!
Our fall Health Security Plan Design series began last week with a conversation with Health Security champions Rep. Debbie Armstrong and Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino. We had almost 80 participants on Zoom, and some great questions for our two guests.
One of those questions was about how we can recruit more doctors to our state.
In his response, Sen. Ortiz y Pino spoke of some of the selling points he sees our state as having under Health Security: "If we had better reimbursement levels, if we have a simpler system that doesn’t put so many demands for paperwork on the doctors, if we have a system in which they are able to practice at the top of their scope of work, their skill level, that would make New Mexico very attractive, I think, and would help us recruit better and retain the ones we have."
We are so grateful to Sen. Ortiz y Pino and Rep. Armstrong for being our speakers at the meeting. They closed with hopeful and forward-looking thoughts:
Rep. Armstrong: "This is further than we've ever been before… As the bill had been introduced over the years, this is the work that was contemplated of the commission. We're just doing it first, before getting a commission on board… It doesn't work just to do--as we found out--just to do a fiscal analysis if you don't have the underlying questions and assumptions pinned down. This is great work. I would just say, it's been my honor to be a champion."
Sen. Ortiz y Pino: "We're getting very close. We're not talking in terms of theory anymore. We're talking now about how this [the Health Security Plan] would look in an actual plan that we can put down on paper and take to the legislature and say, 'Here we are: step 1, step 2, step 3. And this is what the costs estimates are for this. And these are the federal laws that we have to get waivers from… And this is the way it can be done, a blueprint, a roadmap if you will, about how to get there.'"
A recording of the meeting can be viewed below. (While the live meeting spotlighted our speakers and moderator, the recording shows gallery view.)