Rural health care investment will keep N.M. well

New Mexico’s rural health care system — foundational not just to the well-being of the many New Mexicans but also to the welfare of the state as a whole — is getting much-needed attention this legislative session. If this attention is transformed into support by the end of the session on Thursday, the results could be life-changing in many parts of the states.

Two-thirds of New Mexicans live in areas identified as having a health provider shortage by the federal government and many of those live in rural communities, where travel distances and reduced hospital services contribute to higher mortality rates, poorer maternal and child health, more cases of untreated chronic pain, and more substance abuse.

Accessing routine care in the 26 of 33 New Mexico counties that are largely rural can involve multi-hour drives to the closest provider. Accessing emergency care can be close to impossible.

Health care policy experts report rural hospitals, often the only health care available to surrounding communities, are facing financial pressures, challenging patient needs and other pressures and closing throughout the country. While accessing health care has become challenging everywhere, rural populations are losing services at higher rates than urban areas.

In many ways, rural hospitals are suffering from economic long COVID; they are still feeling the impacts of the financial losses of the pandemic and must deal with increases in medical malpractice insurance costs, workforce shortages and rising costs from a depleted position.

The shutdown of a small, rural hospital reverberates throughout the community and throughout the state. Hospitals and health care facilities are economic drivers, supporting 1 in 12 jobs in their communities on average. Rural patients who don’t have care close to home put greater pressure on emergency and health care transportation services and add to the patient load of rural health care facilities that are already at capacity.

Most importantly, New Mexico cannot expect to succeed — cannot expect to see its children thrive academically and emotionally or its adults prosper economically or socially — if New Mexicans are not healthy.

Over the last few years, the Legislature has taken significant steps to improve health care access in rural New Mexico, investing $364 million last year alone in incentivizing new and expanding rural health providers, supporting rural and tribal hospitals, and raising Medicaid payments to health care providers.

This year, I am sponsoring a plan that would create a $70 million health facility viability fund to provide grants to health care providers that reestablish or expand services in medically underserved areas with operating costs and other expenses. Other legislation under consideration includes proposals to provide $51 million in emergency funding to small rural and frontier hospitals, $60 million for student loan payments for health care professionals, and $50 million for quarterly subsidies for small, acute care hospitals that face financial struggles because of patients’ unpaid bills, unaffordable medical malpractice and property insurance, and declining Medicare payments. In addition, legislators are discussing a bill that would leverage a pool of hospital payments with federal funds to raise Medicaid payments to the same level as those paid by commercial insurers.

Almost 200 rural hospitals have shut down nationwide in the last 18 years, and in New Mexico, one hospital has shut down and 15 have cut back services. Rural New Mexicans are losing access to essential services and their communities are losing jobs. The failure of rural hospitals exacerbates persistent health and economic inequities.

We have an opportunity this legislative session to build on the progress we’ve made to turn this failure around. Success in tearing down the barriers to rural health care will mean greater success for all New Mexicans.

Sen. Pete Campos, D-Las Vegas, has been a member of the Senate since 1991.