Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos
By DANIEL J. CHACÓN
The Santa Fe New Mexican
The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to take up a high-profile bill Monday to change New Mexico’s medical malpractice law, after a presentation Friday, the chairwoman said was designed to inoculate the discussion from the divisive rhetoric that has marked the debate.
With less than two weeks left in the 30-day session, Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, who is a co-sponsor of House Bill 99, emphasized the urgency of getting the legislation — which she noted has bipartisan support — passed.
“There has been so much inflammatory, inaccurate, hand-waving discussion for the last year or two years,” she said. “It is incumbent upon us [to act responsibly] as we take on something that our constituents, frankly, need. We’re losing doctors.”
Chandler called on lawmakers and others to work together for the betterment of the state, which is grappling with a shortage of doctors — a problem many health professionals attribute to New Mexico’s medical malpractice law. Critics of change worry caps will leave injured patients with too little recourse. Legislative Republicans have generally been supportive of capping damages while Democrats have been divided.
“We must step away from all of the kind of evil corporate world we must punish and the evil litigation plaintiff trial lawyers who are only in it for the money kind of dialogue,” she said. “Both sides need to lower the tenor, so that all of us can make a considered, thoughtful decision on behalf of our constituents.”
Chandler said she invited Dr. Brooke Baker to talk generally about how malpractice claims work and their impact on physicians, as well as an amendment added by the House Health and Human Services Committee to carve out corporate hospitals from caps on punitive damages, which Chandler called “perhaps the most contentious” provision of HB 99.
Punitive damages, which are designed to punish providers for wrongdoing, are uncapped under current law. Under HB 99, punitive damages would be limited to around $900,000 for independent doctors, $1 million for independent outpatient clinics and $6 million for locally owned and operated hospitals — the same caps set for compensatory damages in medical malpractice cases. Under the amendment added in the bill’s first committee hearing, punitive damages would be left uncapped in complaints against large corporate hospitals.
Baker and some lawmakers raised concerns about the clarity of the language in the amendment and exactly who is and isn’t subject to uncapped punitive damages.
“One of the things that seemed clear was that the authors of the unfriendly amendment and the supporters of the unfriendly amendment, I think, were genuinely concerned about how we regulate and rein in potential unethical business practices for large corporations, what they refer to as billion-dollar corporations, and making sure that we have just and appropriate and safe care and that we don’t allow these corporations to run roughshod over patients rights,” Baker said. “I think that’s absolutely important.”
Baker noted New Mexico has both for-profit and nonprofit hospital systems.
The nonprofit systems that would be subject to uncapped punitive damages because they have more than more than one hospital are Christus Health System and Presbyterian Healthcare Services, which both have hospitals in Santa Fe.
Rep. Matthew McQueen, D-Galisteo, agreed the language is the amendment is “poorly drafted” and unclear.
“There are two potential approaches,” he said. “One is to strike the amendment. The other is to fix the amendment, and I think both those approaches are still on the table.”
McQueen also said he was frustrated with the “implicit suggestion” that reforming the malpractice system will automatically improve the medical system. Both need reform, he said: “Our medical system has other really significant issues beyond malpractice.”