New Mexico raised its cap on payouts for medical malpractice. The result, according to this article, is a rise in litigations, some high-profile payouts, the rise of malpractice insurance premiums, and the drastic diminishment of insurance companies willing to cover doctors and hospitals in the state. Since this is a situation which besets our own local hospital, you might want to delve into the situation. Here is a link to the article: https://searchlightnm.org/high-costs-malpractice-insurance-threaten-new-mexico-hospitals/.
Those who support malpractice litigation rightly think that anyone harmed by malpractice should have some remedy. On the other hand, humans are not machines, and medicine is not mechanical. Nothing says medical practice is guaranteed to be successful 100% of the times. Malpractice is a tricky determination, especially since treatments can’t usually be redone by an alternative. I don’t know if malpractice is not simply part of the risk of medicine or life. Everything in medical study is statistical. Of course, this is not to say that there is not foolish and abusive practice. We just don’t know if courts can see the difference. And that uncertainty seems to have created a health and economic situation for us in rural counties of New Mexico.
Take up in the political schedule one sided coin.
Catastrophic. No solution comes to mind. Desperate situation for the people of New Mexico.
Grief. Tears. No words, really.
But for your reporting, we in Sierra County might not have known of the extent of this tragedy.
I don’t know if it’s that hard to come up with a reasonable definition of malpractice. What I do think is difficult is dealing with all the special interests who are affected by the strictness or leniency of the laws in a particular state, and fight for a particular set of laws that are favorable to those they represent.
I do think when medical practitioners are willfully negligent or seriously inept there is no good argument for just thinking that’s the cost of doing business, any more than we should do so with police, firefighters, construction contractors or airline pilots.
Mr. Lawton has sent the following link to an article on bad behavior in healthcare: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/07/annual-awards-healthcare-profiteering.