Links, Documents for Recent Behavioral Health Stories

I've been pretty busy this week with stories related to the investigation and de-funding of New Mexico's behavioral health providers.

Here's my story in today's New Mexican about a former OptumHealth executive saying the Martinez administration targeted the 15 providers because of ties to past Democratic governors. The BehavioralHealthcare.net story in which Jana Spalding made the remarks is HERE (She's quoted on page 2 of the article.)

In my story, Human Services spokesman Matt Kennicott quotes a recent KUMN interview with Attorney General Gary King. That portion of the interview is on the Youtube at the end of this post.

I also wrote about a news conference in Albuquerque earlier this week.

In it, Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino refers to an article by Human Services' deputy counsel Larry Hyeck about freezing funds of providers during fraud investigations that was published in a legal journal last year. That article is HERE.

Finally, here's the "primer" on the behavioral healthcare controversy that ran in Sunday's edition.

Santa Fe Resident Nominated for Director of National Science Foundation

Who knew that Santa Fe -- where we've spent countless hours in courtrooms and City Council meetings debating whether wi-fi will kill you -- would one day be home to a director of the National Science Foundation.

But it's true. President Obama has nominated France Anne Cordova to that position.

Cordova, a former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist, was president of Purdue University between 2007 to 2012. She's also chairman of the Smithsonian Institute Board of Regents and is a member of the National Science Board.

According to a news release:

From 2002 to 2007, Dr. Cordova served as Chancellor of the University of California at Riverside, where she was a Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy. Previously, Dr. Cordova was the Vice Chancellor for Research and Professor of Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara from 1996 to 2002. She served as NASA’s Chief Scientist from 1993 to 1996. She was on the faculty of the Pennsylvania State University, where she served as Head of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics from 1989 to 1993. Dr. Cordova served as Deputy Group Leader in the Earth and Space Sciences Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1988 to 1989 and Staff Scientist from 1979 to 1989.  ... Dr. Cordova received a B.A. from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology.

Since leaving Purdue , she has lived in Santa Fe with her husband Christian Foster, who she met here years ago.

More National Publicity for Susana

In case you're not one of the people who read People magazine, there's a story in the current issue about Gov. Susana Martinez taking care of her sister Lettie, who is developmentally disabled.

This comes about a week after another "soft" feature about the governor,  the Albuquerque Journal's sad story about Martinez losing her father as well as six pets in the past six months.

Is this just a coincidence, or is this someone's conscious effort to soften the gov's image?

I'll let others decide that. Below is the People story, sent to me by the Republican Governor's Association.

Gov. Susana Martinez in People Mag by Steve Terrell

Also, Martinez is featured, along with Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval in a story in Politico. This one is about how a couple of Hispanic, western governors aren't facing the same kind of Hispanic backlash over immigration issues as other Republicans.

Politico says, "Martinez has also tacked to the center on some key issues: After she took office, she opted not to cut education funding in the state and was, after Sandoval, one of the first GOP governors to accept the Medicaid expansion. Both decisions played well with voters. But she’s also built up her GOP credentials by working to turn the state’s deficit into a surplus and leading the successful push to lower state corporate income tax rates."

I'm sure state legislators might have  something to say about the deficit, since they have a pretty big role in crafting the budget.

And here's something that will really irk Gary King and Sen. Linda Lopez: "...neither Martinez nor Sandoval has a serious 2014 reelection challenger in sight."

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: NSA Vote Jumbles Party Lines

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
July 1, 2013

In this corner, Ben Ray Luján, Michelle Lujan Grisham and Steve Pearce. And in this corner, John Boehner, Michele Bachmann and Barack Obama …

I love an issue where the normal, predictable partisan lines are jumbled and strange bedfellows are the order of the day. And that’s exactly what happened with last week’s vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on a measure that would have defunded the National Security Agency’s domestic mass surveillance program.

All three members of New Mexico’s delegation — Democrats Luján and Lujan Grisham as well as Republican Pearce — voted in favor of an amendment to the Defense Department’s annual appropriations bill sponsored by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., and co-sponsored by his Democratic home state colleague, Rep. John Conyers.

The amendment failed by only 12 votes. It got the support of 94 Republicans, which is a pretty major chunk of the House GOP and 111 Democrats, which was a majority of their caucus.

All of this is fairly amazing when you consider that the leadership of both parties, not to mention the White House, fought hard against it. All three New Mexicans can brag that they stood up to their party bosses.

In case you’ve been held hostage by space aliens for the past few weeks and missed all the news and commentary about the issue, the NSA has routinely over the past several years collected the daily phone records of millions of Americans. It’s “metadata” which means they’re not actually listening in on all these calls (or so they tell us), they’re just looking at who and where we’re calling.

One surprising aspect of the Amash Amendment vote is that none of this state’s congressional delegation — who normally are not shy about flooding reporters’ in-boxes with statements about their positions and votes on all sorts of issues big and small — sent news releases on this one.

So I contacted the press spokesmen for all three to get the reasons for their vote.

“I have long been opposed to the overly broad powers established by the Patriot Act,” Luján said. “This amendment would have prevented the widespread collection of information regarding the telephone calls of Americans here at home. This program raises serious concerns that the NSA has gone too far toward infringing upon the privacy of American citizens.”

Lujan Grisham said, “While Americans recognize that we must make some sacrifices in the interest of national security, the NSA’s broad surveillance practices go too far. We owe it to the American people to ensure that intelligence agencies have the tools they need to keep us safe without spying on law-abiding Americans.”

And Pearce said, “The Amash Amendment protected the rights, liberties and freedoms of each and every American by prohibiting the NSA and other agencies from blanket collection of every American’s information — while still providing the agencies with the ability to protect our nation from terrorists both foreign and domestic.”

His spokesman, Eric Layer, told me this doesn’t contradict Pearce’s support of the Patriot Act and other legislation dealing with counterterrorism surveillance. “This amendment would have gotten the Patriot Act back to its original purpose and limits,” he said.

By the time you’re reading this, I’m sure nearly all members of Congress have gone back to their regular corners and resumed their obligatory partisan head-bonking. But it’s heartening to know that there are some important issues that can throw a monkey wrench into business as usual.

New VA Clinic To Be Built in Santa Fe

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich and U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan announced today that the U.S. Veterans Administration will build  a new outpatient clinic on the outskirts of Santa Fe.

The new 7,000-square-foot clinic will be located in the Las Soleras developent off Cerrillos Road near I-25. (That's the same area where the state government has been contemplating putting a new state office complex. That proposal has been on hold for several years.)

The new clinic will be twice the size of the current clinic on Brothers Road.

Heinrich and Lujan recently met with VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Robert Petzel two weeks ago to discuss problems with clinics in Northern New Mexico. Those problems are outlined in the letter below. Complaints mentioned include quality of care, patient confidentiality, a limited range of services, accessibility issues for disabled veterans and "antiquated phone equipment" that makes it difficult to make appointments and take care of prescriptions.

Both Congress members expressed appreciation for the VA taking this action.

The contractor, Beckner Road Equities of Albuquerque, will begin a schedule for design and construction in August.

Heinrich and Luján Letter to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, April 5, 2013 by U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.)

Judge Denies Restraining Order for Behavioral Health Providers

Federal District Judge Christina Armijo has denied a petition from eight behavioral-health providers under investigation for possible fraud. The petition attempted to force the state Human Services Department to restore their Medicaid funding.

The department froze the funding for 15 providers last month after an outside audit reported possible fraud.

"The Court concludes that Plaintiffs' deprivation of property claim has no realistic likelihood of success on its merits," Armijo wrote.

Referring to the audit by the Boston-based Public Consulting Group that last month found evidence of over-billing and "credible allegations of fraud," Armijo wrote, "Plaintiffs' principal line of attack has been to attack the credibility of PCG based on the results of an audit PCG conducted for the State of North Carolina. [swt note: See my story on that HERE] Although this evidence would be fodder for cross examination at trial, it is insufficient to establish that PCG's New Mexico audit was unreliable."

Armijo noted "since the suspension of payments has not been shown to be wrongful, the consequences of the suspension are not legally cognizable harm."

The judge, however, expressed concern for the thousands of clients of the providers.

The providers' "clients include individuals with homicidal and suicidal ideation, children in foster care homes, and individuals dependent on psychotropic drugs," Armijo wrote. "Many of these clients have developed beneficial therapeutic relationships with Plaintiffs’ health care clinicians, who have not been accused of any wrongdoing by (Human Services). ... it is a concern of this Court that despite (Human Services') efforts to ensure continuity of care ... there could be a disruption of the delivery of critical mental health services in some instances. The Court is not insensitive to this outcome, but is constrained by the prevailing law and the credible allegations of fraud against Plaintiffs, all as explained above."

Below is a copy of Armijo's decision (Hat tip to New Mexico Watchdog whose Scribd link I'm using)

Armijo Ruling by Rob Nikolewski

Marks Suspends AG Campaign

Former Public Regulation Commissioner Jason Marks, an Albuquerque Democrat, has suspended his exploratory committee for the attorney general because of difficulty in fundraising.

This leaves an open road for state auditor Hector Balderas in the Democratic primary.

So far no Republican has announced for the race, though many expect Clovis District Attorney, who lost to incumbent Gary King in 2010, to run again. King can't seek a third term and is instead running for governor.

Marks sent this letter to supporters today:

Dear Friends and Supporters: 

 When I began an exploratory campaign for Attorney General of the state of New Mexico in January, it was with great anticipation and determination.  We spoke with many friends and supporters.  The consensus was that I had a strong record to run on from my eight years as a PRC Commissioner, and the ability to garner support around the state based on that record and a platform emphasizing consumer protection, government accountability, and environmental protection.   While we understood from the beginning there would be serious competition, we very much believed we would ultimately win. 

These past six months have confirmed many of our positive expectations for the race.  I gained commitments of support from a large number of Democratic Party State Central Committee members (including approximately half of the members from Bernalillo County).   We were successful in garnering significant support outside of my Albuquerque-area PRC District, from Las Cruces to Taos.  Our activist, issues-based campaign generated positive feedback from both the grassroots and opinion leaders in the Party (and beyond).  We have a cadre of experienced volunteers ready to go to work across the state.  But we fell short of our goals for fundraising, which is unfortunately of critical importance in today’s political environment. 

After much consultation and consideration, it has become clear that the fundraising gap has put our campaign in a position where the prospects of winning are slim under most scenarios.  It would be unfair to my friends and supporters - and to my family -  to ask for continued commitments of time, money, and energy to the race under these circumstances.  So, with disappointment, I am suspending my campaign for Attorney General.

It has been my honor to serve the people of New Mexico, Bernalillo County and Albuquerque as a two-term PRC Commissioner.   Public service is a driving force in my life, and I remain dedicated to protecting the public and improving our state.  We are considering my political options and keeping all doors open.  I will stay in touch to let you know what develops.   

Thank you for your generous and kind support over the years.  It has truly meant the world to Maxine and me.