SOURCE: Albuquerque Journal
SANTA FE – Emergency legislation that would update New Mexico’s new medical malpractice law to prevent an interruption in health care delivery in 15 days moved closer to passage Thursday at the Roundhouse.
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee made a host of technical changes to the bill but kept intact the heart of a deal crafted by a coalition of trial lawyers, hospital leaders, physicians and patient advocates.
The proposal, the coalition says, is necessary to ensure independent doctors – a category that includes many surgeons – can continue to practice at hospitals in New Mexico and that independently owned outpatient clinics can stay open.
Without the new legislation, the coalition says, insurance carriers won’t provide insurance after Dec. 31 because of questions about legal liability.
Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque, amended the bill Thursday to make technical changes intended to ensure the proposal would take effect as intended – a complex task because the measure proposes to amend legislation that was passed earlier this year but hasn’t yet taken effect.
The coalition of lawyers and doctors said the changes are acceptable.
“We are satisfied this accomplishes our goal of keeping these facilities open and patients cared for,” said Kathy Love, an Albuquerque attorney and former president of the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association.
The proposed fix, however, faced criticism from Sen. Joseph Cervantes, a Las Cruces Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He is an attorney whose work includes litigation against hospitals.
The legislation, Cervantes said, is vague and will lead to years of legal disputes over how to define certain terms in the law. He proposed his own package of amendments, which failed to win approval.
“This was just really poorly done,” Cervantes said of the proposal. “We are doing a disservice to people who have suffered catastrophic injuries or who have been killed.”
The legal questions center, in part, on how to cap the legal damages available for people harmed by medical wrongdoing. The goal is to keep the caps low enough to ensure doctors and clinics can get medical malpractice insurance, but high enough to ensure patients and families can get justice when they’re harmed.
The caps vary for hospitals, outpatient clinics and others in the health care system.
Cervantes, in any case, didn’t object to passage of the bill in committee after his amendments failed, and it now heads to the Senate floor. If approved by the full chamber, it would have to go back to the House for agreement on the changes made by Ivey-Soto.
House Speaker Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, described the amendments as “more friendly than not,” suggesting the House will accept them.
Egolf called it “a critical piece of legislation to keep health care flowing to patients on the first of the year.”
Both chambers must approve the bill with a two-thirds vote for it to take effect Jan. 1 rather than in 90 days.