Hatch is pushing to limit "non-economic" malpractice awards for claims such as pain and suffering to $250,000. He favors still allowing unlimited economic awards to cover past and future medical costs, lost wages and assisted-living expenses.

Bills to do so were filibustered by Democrats earlier this year. Hatch and his allies were unable to muster the three-fifths majority needed to cut off that talk-a-thon. However, Hatch says he has the simple majority needed to enact the reform. Hatch worried aloud that "Senate inaction may derail reform and allow this liability crisis to continue unabated."

Hatch and a parade of doctors and hospital administrators told the gathering that without limits on lawsuit awards quickly, more doctors will be driven out of high-risk areas such as obstetrics, and medical costs will rise as doctors order tests and procedures that likely are not necessary except to better protect them in a lawsuit.

John C. Nelson, a Salt Lake obstetrician and president of the American Medical Association, called the situation a crisis, with "patients having to leave their state to receive urgent surgical care, pregnant women who cannot find an obstetrician to monitor their pregnancy and deliver their babies," and health centers closing because of liability concerns.

Salt Lake attorney Charles Thronson said no such crisis exists and that capping awards would hurt victims he represents. He said malpractice filings decreased nationally by 1 percent between 1998 and 2002. He said malpractice payments dropped 7.7 percent from 2001 to 2002.

"There has never, ever in the history of the state of Utah been a medical malpractice verdict that could by any stretch of the imagination be called a runaway verdict," he said, "yet that is not what doctors or patients or the public is being told."

---

E-mail: lee@desnews.com