Healthcare • Doctors • Access • Workforce
Stem the Loss of Doctors!
A practical plan to stop doctors from leaving New Mexico, expand access to care, and protect patients while restoring fairness to the medical malpractice system.
New Mexico is facing a growing healthcare access crisis. Doctors are leaving the state not because they want to, but because the cost of practicing medicine here has become unsustainable. When physicians leave, patients lose access to care, wait times grow longer, and communities — especially rural ones — are left behind. This plan addresses the root causes driving doctors away while protecting patients’ rights and access to justice.
On March 25, 2025, Dr. Lawrence Andrade announced that he and his wife, Dr. Andra Andrade were leaving New Mexico due to the skyrocketing cost of medical malpractice insurance. Collectively, they served 9,000 patients. Their departure is a symptom of the medical malpractice crisis facing New Mexico.
We are the only state in the nation that has lost doctors during the past 5 years. The reason? The cost of medical malpractice insurance. We have the highest per capita medical malpractice lawsuits in the country. It is causing our doctors to flee, a scarcity of specialists and forcing patients to wait days, weeks or sometimes months to schedule necessary visits with their doctors. To retain and attract medical professionals in our state, it is essential to pass medical malpractice reform.
Compounding the problem is that 40% of our doctors are over the age of 65 and nearing retirement, and nearly half of the doctors trained in New Mexico are leaving after completing their residency.
We can fix this by:
- Placing caps on non-economic damages, just as California legislators did when they passed the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act.
- Capping Attorney’s fees in malpractice cases to discourage the filing of frivolous lawsuits.
- Joining Interstate Medical Licensure Compacts to alleviate our doctor shortage and increase access to clinics and telehealth services.
- Increasing the number of residency slots, expanding loan forgiveness program for medical school graduates who remain in New Mexico, and the stipends offered for those entering the medical profession.
- Abolish the Gross Receipts Tax (GRT) on medical services.
I have no interest in making it difficult for a patient to recover damages when they are harmed by faulty medical care, but we can ensure that justice is done without running our best and brightest out of New Mexico.
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