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Senate passes bipartisan bill to address medical malpractice payout caps
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By Daniel J. Chacón, The Santa Fe New Mexican
With less than 72 hours left in the 60-day legislative session, the Senate passed a bipartisan bill Wednesday designed to address concerns over looming changes to New Mexico’s medical malpractice law, which doctors and other providers have been pleading with lawmakers to resolve for weeks. Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth of Santa Fe described Senate Bill 523 as a hard-fought compromise between the New Mexico Medical Society and the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association that will allow independent clinics to obtain medical malpractice insurance. “It took everything we had over the last three weeks to get these parties to the point where they could settle,” Wirth said. “Am I frustrated that it happened in the last three days? Yeah, because it puts us in a place where we do have to expedite this,” he added.