By Spencer Hunt
Enquirer Columbus Bureau

COLUMBUS - Republican lawmakers looking to solve an insurance crisis confronting Ohio doctors advanced a new plan Thursday night that would limit what juries can award in medical malpractice lawsuits.

The proposal, expected to emerge in the House for a vote today, is an attempt to curb recent 20 to 60 percent increases in doctors' malpractice insurance premiums. Doctors, insurance executives and their Republican allies in the General Assembly blame those rate hikes on ever-increasing settlements and jury awards in malpractice suits.

A panel of House and Senate lawmakers gave their OK to a compromise bill that would cap lawsuit awards at $500,000 for malpractice cases involving non-permanent injuries and a maximum $1 million limit for cases involving permanent or "catastrophic" medical mistakes. Cases involving a single injured plaintiff would face limits of $350,000 up to $500,000 for permanent injuries.

Opponents of the plan said the compromise bill is more restrictive for malpractice victims, especially those without family members or spouses who could argue they've also suffered from a loved one's injuries. Richard Mason, executive director of the Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers, said the new proposal halves what a single person left seriously injured by malpractice could have collected under a proposal the House passed 64-33 Tuesday.

"This legislature has put a price on the value of people's lives, and that's sad," Mr. Mason said.

Republican supporters of the plan said the limits and other proposals in the bill are needed to help insurance companies better predict potential losses in future malpractice cases. State Sen. Scott Nein, R-Middletown, said too few companies offer Ohio doctors' insurance now. He thinks the changes could eventually bring more insurers back to Ohio, increasing competition and driving down premiums.

The new plan eliminates House and Senate proposals that would have let jury awards exceed the caps based on a victim's life expectancy.

Plaintiffs would have to file lawsuits within four years of their alleged injuries. The only exceptions would be for children younger than 18, and for people who discover a medical instrument, sponge or other foreign body left sewn in their bodies more than four years after their surgeries.

Lawmakers left out another exception that would have given Ohioans a year to file a lawsuit if they discover a missed diagnosis after more than four years have passed.

That angered Rep. Edward Jerse, D-Euclid, who said women whose breast cancers were overlooked in mammograms would have no case in courts.

The panel also resolved a dispute between House and Senate Republicans over lawyers' fees. Senators wanted to limit what lawyers could collect in payment for malpractice lawsuits.

House Republicans balked at the idea.

E-mail shunt@enquirer.com