LOCAL COLUMN

OPINION: Malpractice bill won't bring doctors, but it will shield profits

Published

Congratulations to our lawmakers who, once again, chose to protect multimillion and billion-dollar corporations over the people of New Mexico through House Bill 99.

We were told that capping malpractice damages would somehow solve our health care workforce crisis. Wealthy hospital systems — armed with highly paid lobbyists and political influence — persuaded lawmakers that limiting patients’ rights would keep doctors from leaving New Mexico. There is just one problem with that narrative: It isn’t true.

By supporting HB 99, lawmakers did not fix health care or solve shortages. They limited your voice. They placed statutory handcuffs on juries — the citizens entrusted to determine accountability when catastrophic harm occurs — ensuring corporations keep more profits even when negligence causes death or lifelong disability.

Juries are 12 members of our community tasked with deciding what justice requires. I have won trials and lost trials. Sometimes I agreed with the outcome; sometimes I did not. But I respected those decisions because they came from fellow New Mexicans — the conscience of our community.

HB 99 takes that power away. Now, no matter how egregious the conduct or devastating the injury, lawmakers have predetermined the value of human suffering — not a jury, but a statute.

Medical malpractice cases are not about minor inconveniences. They involve preventable deaths and lifelong disabilities or disfigurements. Some cases involve mistakes. Medicine is practiced by human beings, and human beings are imperfect. But some cases involve systemic failures, ignored warnings, understaffing or profit-driven shortcuts.

We do not have eye-for-an-eye justice. Our remedy is money damages — intended to right a wrong as best as our system can. Historically, New Mexico juries decided where compensation fell on that spectrum: sometimes zero, sometimes thousands, sometimes millions. The community decided justice.

We hear lawsuits are “driving doctors away.” It is politically effective — but largely unsupported by research. Physicians choose where to practice based on compensation, infrastructure, staffing and opportunity. If solving shortages were the real goal, why did lawmakers not introduce legislation to increase physician pay incentives, expand residency programs, fund rural hospital infrastructure, or offer student-loan forgiveness for in-state practice? Why was the only “solution” one that reduced corporate liability?

Why didn’t health care corporations offer to increase physician pay, invest in patient-safety technology that reduces medical errors, or improve staffing ratios that prevent burnout and mistakes? Because those solutions cut into profits. Instead, resources are spent lobbying lawmakers to shield corporations from financial exposure and help increase their profitability.

Lawmakers chose to protect billion-dollar revenues, executive compensation, and operating margins — at the expense of injured New Mexicans.

What have our lawmakers done to New Mexicans?

Caps also weaken deterrence. When liability exposure is reduced, so too is the financial incentive to invest in safety, staffing, error-prevention, and training and oversight. When the maximum cost of harm is predetermined, human life becomes a part of a corporate risk-reward analysis: Is it cheaper to pay the cap or prevent the harm?

At its core, HB 99 is not about doctors versus patients. It is about corporations versus accountability. Lawmakers have told injured New Mexicans: Your suffering has a ceiling. They have told jurors: Your voice matters — until it affects a corporation’s profits. And they have ensured corporations that their financial exposure is now predictable and protected.

New Mexicans believe in personal responsibility. We believe that when harm is caused, accountability should follow. And we believe juries — not lobbyists — should decide what justice requires. HB 99 moves us away from those principles. Not toward better health care or more doctors — but toward better corporate balance sheets.

Josh Bradley is an Albuquerque attorney practicing in the area of consumer protection.

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