Candidates Pay a House Call to Doctors Group

The running mates of Maryland's two leading candidates for governor offered competing visions yesterday for containing the cost of medical malpractice insurance when relief provided by the legislature is scheduled to end in 2009.

Appearing before the state's largest doctors group, lieutenant governor hopeful Kristen Cox (R) said only Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s administration would push legal reforms needed to curb payouts in malpractice cases, which doctors blame for insurance premium increases of recent years.

"It will not happen in any meaningful, substantial way with Democrats around us," Cox, the secretary of the state Department of Disabilities, told members of the Maryland State Medical Society. "This administration is going to be your friend, your supporter and your ally in this cause."

The event refocused attention on medical malpractice, which was the focus of a contentious debate in Annapolis two years ago.

Addressing the group separately, Prince George's Del. Anthony G. Brown (D) said he and his running mate, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley (D), would be open to changes in the legal system.

The state should also consider extending the subsidies beyond 2009, Brown said. And, he said, Maryland should establish special courts for medical issues, which would help weed out frivolous malpractice cases.

"I don't stand here today to tell you the problem is fixed," Brown said.

Although Cox and Brown have been overshadowed by the dominant personalities on the top of their respective tickets, both are central to their parties' outreach efforts in this election. Ehrlich's pick of Cox, who is legally blind, was considered historic and was intended to bolster Ehrlich's standing with women. Brown, meanwhile, is the only African American on the Democrat's statewide ticket as the party tries to fend off Republican overtures to black voters.

The candidates addressed a range of other health-care issues during the forum, held at a hotel in Linthicum, but the most spirited discussion focused on medical malpractice.

That issue was the focus of an extraordinary special session of the General Assembly called by Ehrlich in late 2004 that both eroded his relationships with Democratic legislative leaders and strained his ties to MedChi, as the state doctors group is known in Annapolis.

The bill passed by lawmakers created a state fund to subsidize malpractice premiums -- doctors insured by the state's largest carrier were facing 33 percent rate increases -- and included some modest legal reforms.

After having spent months drumming up public interest in the issue, Ehrlich vetoed the bill, arguing that the legal changes did not do enough to limit payouts to plaintiffs. Ehrlich said he also objected to the legislature's decision to pay for the premium relief with a tax on HMOs.