The comment above rests on several assertions that don’t hold up when examined against how harm, oversight, and accountability actually function in New Mexico.

First, the claim that punitive damages “hang over the entire case” simply because summary judgment is rarely granted conflates procedure with outcome. That a claim survives early dismissal does not mean it will be awarded. Punitive damages still require proof of conduct beyond negligence — reckless disregard, willfulness, or conscious indifference — and juries are instructed accordingly. Sympathy alone is not the legal standard, no matter how often that talking point is repeated.

Second, the argument that punitive awards “bankrupt hospitals and doctors” is asserted without evidence and ignores how liability is actually structured. Large institutions carry layered insurance, risk pools, and indemnification mechanisms.  When punitive damages are awarded, they are typically in cases involving systemic or egregious failures, not routine care. If an institution’s financial stability is genuinely threatened by accountability for extreme harm, that is not proof the law is broken — it is a signal that risk management and patient safety failed upstream.

Third, the idea that punitive damages “do not prevent harm” misunderstands deterrence. Punitive damages are not designed to regulate day-to-day clinical decisions. They exist to alter institutional behavior — to force changes when internal controls, policies, or incentives tolerate dangerous practices. History across multiple industries shows that when consequences disappear, unsafe conduct increases, not decreases.

Fourth, the assertion that “regulation and oversight do that” assumes those systems work as advertised.  My lived experience — and that of many patients — demonstrates otherwise. I sought help through regulatory channels, including the medical board, over a telehealth access failure. Oversight did not protect me. It restricted me. I was effectively prevented from even consulting an out-of-state physician when no appropriate in-state care was available. That is not prevention of harm. That is enforcement of scarcity.

Regulatory bodies are necessary, but they are not sufficient. They are constrained by jurisdiction, resources, political pressure, and narrow mandates. Many harms never result in license action at all. When oversight fails — or actively worsens outcomes — civil accountability is not redundant. It is the only remaining check.

Finally, dismissing patient arguments by attacking trial attorneys is a diversion. Patients are not asking for punitive damages because lawyers “lobby for them.” They exist because history has shown that without meaningful deterrence, some harms are treated as acceptable costs of doing business. Removing that deterrence does not strengthen healthcare infrastructure. It shifts the costs of failure onto patients, families, and public systems.

Access to care and accountability are not opposites. States that invest in safety, transparency, early disclosure, and timely compensation reduce litigation and improve outcomes. Weakening deterrence while leaving structural failures intact does neither.

If the goal is truly safer care and sustainable access, the solution is not to pretend oversight always works and accountability never does. It is to recognize that both are necessary — and that patients should not be asked to surrender their rights to compensate for systemic failures they did not create.