Personal attacks on the front page of the newspaper cannot be left unanswered, especially when they distort the facts and at the same time, ignore the important news that should have been reported.

Last Tuesday’s UpFront column by Win Quigley was titled “Health Exchange Faces Challenges,” and indeed it does. The author attended the inaugural board meetings of the newly formed New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange. He was disappointed by the “tedious decorum” and chastised me personally for failing to create fireworks.

The board has six members appointed by a New Mexico Legislature that is heavily Democratic. There are another six members who were appointed by our Republican governor – Susana Martinez.

What should have been put in italics for emphasis is what Quigley did not see or hear. There was no partisan bickering, name calling or political maneuvering.

What went on was 13 people working hard to accomplish a difficult task. Those 13 people were not Republican, Democrat or tea party. They did not self-identify as liberal or conservative. They did not stand to the right or left of the aisle (in point of fact there was none). There were and are simply “Americans” tasked with improving the lives of their fellow New Mexicans.

What happened at the meetings on April 29 and 30 was the unexpected, or at least unanticipated by and disappointing to Quigley.

We began a process toward achieving a goal we 13 all share.

We seek to create a system in New Mexico where there is affordable health insurance that gives our fellow citizens access to health care.

Quigley calls my previous characterization of the Independent Payment Advisory Board component of the Affordable Care Act as a death panel “nonsense.” Sorry, it makes perfect sense, if one looks at the model for both the advisory board and the ACA – the British National Health System.

What it is doing in Great Britain is what will happen here. But what, I ask, does that have to do with the challenges faced by the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange? Nothing.

Quigley sought to inject dissension and controversy (“fireworks,” his word) where there is none.

Whether in the past I supported ACA or opposed it, that is now immaterial. ACA is the law of the land.

If analysts worried over whether health exchanges could work, so what? The governor signed legislation enabling a state-based health exchange here. The board’s challenge, our job as it were, is to make it work.

There are 13 people on the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange board from diverse backgrounds with a wide array of skills and experience. We may even have different political positions, but I do not see that. I see a group with consensus of purpose.

We are united in what we want to accomplish for our fellow New Mexicans: affordable insurance that provides access to care.

That is big news.

When we succeed, Quigley, if you can set up the fireworks, I will gladly light them off.

Dr. Deane Waldman is a pediatric cardiologist with the University of New Mexico Department of Pediatrics and the author of “Uproot U.S. Healthcare” as well as “The Cancer In Healthcare.”