Corporate dollars seek to mislead New Mexicans about health care

By Feliz A. Rael | June 28, 2025

New Mexico Safety Over Profit, the only statewide consumer-protection organization centering people harmed by big corporations and insurance companies, made headlines recently after being sued and accused of concealing details of a campaign defending New Mexicans’ right to hold out-of-state corporations and insurers accountable when they have been harmed.

Transparency matters, but make no mistake: This lawsuit is about power, not principle.

In 2024, the secretary of state required groups like ours to report spending through lobbyist-employer filings rather than the separate ad campaign portal. We complied, including filing a 48-hour report during the session. Those documents sit in plain view for anyone who cares to look. What remains shrouded is the bigger story; this lawsuit is the latest distraction drawing eyes away from the cash pipeline propping up corporate medicine.

While New Mexico Safety Over Profit worked to warn New Mexicans against letting corporations off the hook, for-profit hospitals and insurance companies poured in millions of dollars to further their agenda, covered by the invisible cloak of so-called philanthropy.

Corporations financed a media blitz of half-truths and disinformation, hired more than 20 lobbyists, and funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to seemingly “nonpartisan” think tanks to fight people-centered policies like delivering justice for child sexual assault survivors, requiring safety rules for driverless semis and mandating minimum nurse-staffing ratios in hospitals, just to name a few.

Ahead of the 2025 Legislative Session, one of these so-called ‘think tanks,” Think New Mexico, released a “health care report” pushing for legislation that would have fattened corporate and insurance profits while harming patients. Their report thanks Anchorum Health Foundation — a fund seeded with proceeds from Christus Health’s purchase of St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, and Con Alma Health Foundation, whose $20 million endowment comes entirely from two “health care conversion” deals that turned nonprofit health care organizations into for-profit enterprises. Last year, Con Alma gave Think New Mexico $300,000 to hire a health care reform director; that director brokered and publicly championed the Christus acquisition of St. Vincent.

We should all be deeply concerned that this corporate medicine, conservative playbook is being funded by Anchorum and amplified by Think New Mexico to pass policies in our state. It’s irresponsible and dishonest; New Mexicans deserve better. We deserve real facts and real solutions.

New Mexico Safety Over Profit is a voice for people like Bryanna Baker, who lost two children and suffers lasting heart damage due to medical negligence, to fight for justice. Voices like hers matter now, more than ever. New Mexico has the highest percentage of private equity–owned hospitals in the country, and a Harvard-led study found these hospitals have a 25% higher rate of patient harm. Meanwhile, Think New Mexico wants you to believe that attorneys who defend these patients are the problem.

We cannot allow billionaire interests and corporate agendas to silently fund harmful policies under the guise of think tanks and foundations. With $250,000 from Anchorum to Think New Mexico, $300,000 from Con Alma, and roughly half a billion more on the way, transparency must be the standard. Let’s start with billion-dollar hospitals and insurance companies, not the people exposing them. Think again, New Mexico.

Feliz A. Rael is a board member of New Mexico Safety Over Profits and a trial lawyer representing children, the elderly, and people with disabilities in cases involving nursing home abuse, neglect, and personal injury. She lives and practices in Albuquerque.

This article first appeared in the Santa Fe New Mexican on June 28, 2025.