Victory on medical malpractice!

After enough twists and turns to fill an Agatha Christie novel HB 99 passed the New Mexico House of Representatives last night (Tuesday) and sent the (relatively) clean medical malpractice reform bill to the Gov.’s desk where she is expected to sign it.

According to Dan Boyd of the Albuquerque Journal, “The bill also would create a tiered system that would cap punitive damages at about $1 million for independent physicians and clinics, $6 million for locally owned hospitals and $15 million for larger corporate-owned hospitals.”

While imperfect, this is far better than the status quo or the amended versions of the bill. The trial attorney lobby (who dominate the Senate Judiciary Committee) was overwhelmed by New Mexicans and their legislators of both parties who are demanding New Mexico be made more attractive for medical professionals to practice. Will this SOLVE New Mexico’s challenges in attracting and retaining health care professionals? No, but it is certainly worth celebrating and it is a BIG step.

The Rio Grande Foundation has worked on the medical provider shortage problem including our research paper which highlights numerous issues. But, there is much more to be done.

The GRT on medical providers and products needs to be addressed/eliminated (preferably the GRT should be eliminated entirely replaced with a sales tax, but starting for medical providers would help).

NM needs to shrink its massive Medicaid rolls and push these people into (preferably) private sector jobs with private health insurance.

NM will join a few medical provider compacts this session, but it needs to join more of them. We won’t know which ones we’ll be a part of until the session is completely done.

Finally, quality of life issues like schools, taxes, and crime are obstacles to New Mexico attracting medical providers. Those can all be addressed but the Legislature has been reluctant to do so.

Conclusion: This was a HUGE win for New Mexico. It may “stop the bleeding” when it comes to our medical provider shortage, but much more needs to be done and we’ll continue to draw attention to these issues and push for necessary change.