Hawaii's Malpractice Sanctuary Bill | OPPOSE SB2868 & HB1875

SB2868 & HB1875 turns Hawaii into a safe haven for botched care and unaccountable doctors. While the rest of the country is finally pushing back against unchecked medical overreach, our one-party legislature is sprinting in the opposite direction with these measures.

The so-called “health care” bill, introduced in January has now passed its third hearing in the House, but there is still time to stop its Senate companion. Don’t let the innocent title fool you. This legislation is about creating a malpractice sanctuary where doctors who deliver botched gender-affirming procedures and face lawsuits elsewhere can set up shop in Hawaii with zero fear of real accountability. It supercharges the 2023 reproductive shield law for gender-affirming procedures, and in doing so, it guts the very mechanisms that keep bad doctors in check.

Shielding Prosecuted Practitioners So They Can Practice on Hawaii Patients Instead

HB 1875 explicitly prohibits Hawaii’s professional licensing boards from disciplining physicians, nurses, therapists, psychologists, and counselors for providing “lawful” gender-affirming care. Even if a doctor has been sued, investigated, or stripped of privileges in another state for substandard or harmful practices, Hawaii’s boards are handcuffed. They cannot act based on that history if the crime had to do with "gender-affirming health care services".

It defines "gender-affirming health care services" as medically necessary interventions (hormones, surgeries, etc.) to suppress secondary sex characteristics, align appearance with gender identity, or alleviate gender dysphoria, plus related mental/behavioral health support. This allows Hawaii to exempt providers from licensing discipline, bars state cooperation, and denies extradition for any out-of-state conviction or charge based on providing or assisting with such care. The exemptions apply regardless of the specific charge label (e.g., child abuse, mutilation, unauthorized practice) if the factual basis matches the bill's protected definition and Hawaii standards.

It bars the state from cooperating with out-of-state investigations, denies extradition for related offenses, and declares other states’ laws “contrary to Hawaii public policy.” Prosecuted elsewhere? Come to Hawaii. We’ll protect you.

This is insane. We believe in personal responsibility, including for doctors. When a practitioner harms a patient through malpractice (or even through substandard care), that doctor should face consequences. This creates a protected class of practitioners who get a get-out-of-liability-free card.

Forcing Insurance Companies to Cover the Risk 

Here’s the part that should terrify every insurance customer in the state. New sections in the bill prohibit medical malpractice insurers from:

• Refusing to issue a policy

• Canceling or terminating coverage

• Raising rates based on actual risk

  
  

…if the sole reason is that the provider offers gender-affirming care.

Health carriers can’t drop participating providers either. Insurers are now forced to underwrite high-risk practices. Because of this, premiums could skyrocket for everyone else. Patients who suffer complications will find it harder to get justice because the insurance companies were legally coerced into covering the malpractice. This is government-mandated risk socialization and state-sanctioned abuse of authority. Pure cronyism.

“Abusive” Litigation Shield 

The bill creates brand-new “protections against abusive litigation” that make it nearly impossible for harmed patients to sue successfully. It also clamps down on protected health information, limiting disclosures even where there may be a legitimate need. This makes challenging providers exponentially harder. Combined with the licensing and insurance protections, it creates a fortress around practitioners. Good luck holding anyone accountable when the deck is already stacked against you.

The Real Victims: Patients, Families, and Hawaii Taxpayers

This bill weakens medical accountability and limits safeguards intended to protect patients. It’s not a sanctuary for vulnerable people, it’s a sanctuary for the industry profiting immensely off them. Shielding practitioners to this degree invites abuse. Yet the proposed legislation says Hawaii will protect every provider who pushes these procedures, no matter the nuance.

The same legislature that can’t fix our roads, our homelessness crisis, or our failing schools have decided to focus their efforts on making Hawaii the mainland’s dumping ground for malpractice refugees.

Libertarians OPPOSE SB2868 & HB1875 for the Tyranny it Is

We believe in real medical freedom, informed consent, free speech, and genuine accountability through due process and market forces. As such, we oppose government-mandated shields for politically favored procedures. This bill is authoritarian medicine dressed up as compassion. It tells insurance companies and licensing boards to shut up and pay up. And it tells every Hawaii patient: If you suffer harm, tough luck; the state has your doctor’s back. 

Truly compassionate care puts the patient, the individual, first. If Hawaii cares about healthcare that is supportive and inclusive of minority populations, it would not be trying to strip away their basic rights by shielding criminals who signed the hippocratic oath. The Libertarian Party of Hawaii stands with patients and with actual medical ethics, and against the ideologues who want to shield practitioners while hiding behind government protection.

Freedom includes the freedom to be held accountable. This is not progressive; it is reckless, dangerous, and profoundly anti-liberty.

Take Action Now

HB1875 has already passed in the house. Our focus should be on SB2868 for tracking and testimony. 

• Read the bills’ summaries & text: SB2868 & HB1875.

  
  

• Call your representatives. Demand they kill “Hawaii’s Malpractice Sanctuary Bill”, SB2868 & HB1875.

  
  

• Follow these simple steps to track and testify.

• Share this post far & wide

  
  

• Contact us for more information and tailored advice.

  
  

Thank you for helping us uphold libertarian principles and OPPOSE SB2868 & HB1875

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