The New Mexico Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday advanced House Bill 99, a medical malpractice overhaul, with Republicans and all but one Democrat voting in favor of the measure.
The 8-1 vote came at the end of a contentious three-hour hearing in which some Democratic committee members pushed sponsor Rep. Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos) and committee members to support a series of 11 amendments to key aspects of the bill.
Many of the amendments failed on 5-4 votes, requiring two Democrats to vote along with three committee Republicans to kill suggested changes.
The committee did, however, approve three amendments over Chandler’s objections. The amended bill now heads to the Senate floor.
Chandler told Source NM after the meeting that at least two of the amendments could be tough for fellow House members to accept. If the bill as currently amended passes the Senate floor, House lawmakers will have to agree to the changes before sending the bill to the governor.
During a floor vote, the Senate could vote to eliminate the Senate Judiciary Committee’s amendments or add new ones. That hearing had not been scheduled as of Tuesday afternoon.
House lawmakers have touted HB 99 as a compromise and the Legislature’s only chance in the final days of the session to reform the state’s medical malpractice law. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has also urged lawmakers to pass the bill, which she said will help reduce a statewide doctor shortage.
Among other changes, the bill imposes caps on punitive damages providers can face in civil lawsuits, with higher caps for corporately owned hospitals than independent providers. It also raises the standard of evidence plaintiffs’ lawyers must prove for juries to award those damages, which are meant to punish egregious misconduct.
Before Tuesday’s hearing began, four Democratic senators on the committee issued disclosures about their day jobs as plaintiffs’ attorneys, including Senate Judiciary Chair Sen. Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces), Sen. Katy Duhigg (D-Albuquerque), Senate Majority Leader Sen. Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe) and Sen. Antonio “Moe” Maestas (D-Albuquerque).
All four opted against recusing themselves from the vote, however, and said they would not personally financially benefit from any changes on which they were voting. Medical malpractice reform advocates, including advocacy group Think New Mexico, have repeatedly made note of Democratic senators who work as trial lawyers and serve on the Senate Judiciary.
Two of them, Cervantes and Duhigg, each presented five amendments that sought to change or remove key aspects of the bill. Duhigg was the lone “no” vote on sending the bill to the Senate.
The three amendments that the committee voted to include came from Cervantes.
One amendment changes definitions about what counts as a medical injury subject to litigation; another requires that medical costs awarded to an injured patient are based on how much the patient was billed instead of how much the patient actually paid.
The third change omits language that enabled New Mexico-owned hospitals to have a lower cap on punitive damages.
Even without the language, the bill still allows smaller hospitals to have lower caps, including a half-dozen rural New Mexico hospitals, according to lawmakers on the committee.
The Tuesday vote marked the second time in less than 24 hours that the Senate Judiciary Committee met to discuss House Bill 99. The committee debated for approximately six hours in total.
