HOUSE JOINT MEMORIAL 9

49th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2009

INTRODUCED BY

Nathan P. Cote

FOR THE LEGISLATIVE HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE

A JOINT MEMORIAL

REQUESTING THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS TO SUPPORT THE REMOVAL OF GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION FUNDING CAPS IN MEDICARE.

     WHEREAS, the sixteenth report of the council on graduate medical education, "Physician Workforce Policy Guidelines for the United States", projects a significant gap between the expected physician supply and the demand for physicians in the nation; and

     WHEREAS, the New Mexico health policy commission report, "HM2: State Funded Primary Care Residency Slots", estimates that although sixty percent of New Mexicans live in rural areas, sixty-four percent of New Mexico's physicians practice in the urban areas of Albuquerque, Los Alamos and Santa Fe; and

     WHEREAS, primary care providers are essential to an effective health care delivery system, providing crucial acute, chronic and preventive health care services; and

     WHEREAS, the federal government funds graduate medical education largely through the federal medicare program, allotting funds to teaching hospitals; and

     WHEREAS, according to the council on graduate medical education, if the number of medical school graduates increases without a corresponding increase in graduate medical education positions, medical schools and teaching hospitals will have little flexibility for expansion; and 

     WHEREAS, the university of New Mexico school of medicine, established in 1961, is the only medical school in the state; and

     WHEREAS, the university of New Mexico health sciences program reports that the family medicine residency program, with sites in Albuquerque, Las Cruces, Santa Fe and Roswell, has experienced substantial growth since its inception, with a very positive track record in graduating practitioners who remain in New Mexico and who practice in rural areas; and

     WHEREAS, New Mexico communities are currently trying to recruit a substantial number of primary care providers, and the need for primary care providers will only increase with the aging of the population, changing demographics and the retirement of existing practitioners; and

     WHEREAS, in order to meet anticipated future health care needs in the state, the university of New Mexico school of medicine and the university of New Mexico hospital will require both flexibility and adequate funding from various sources, including graduate medical education funding; and

     WHEREAS, adequate graduate medical education funding would permit expansion of existing rural residency programs and an ultimate increase in the number of primary care practitioners in rural New Mexico; and

     WHEREAS, in 1996, the federal medicare program capped the number of residents that could be funded through graduate medical education at a teaching hospital; and

     WHEREAS, numerous calls for reform and innovation in graduate medical education have not resulted in removal of the funding caps;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the members of the New Mexico congressional delegation be requested to support and promote measures to remove graduate medical education funding caps in medicare; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to the members of the New Mexico congressional delegation.

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