"We set this up when we were grappling with the malpractice issue and couldn't figure out how to solve the problem."

"There are malpractice issues--" Adrienne began, but Bonilla cut her off.

But Mr. McInturff, the Republican pollster, says the malpractice issue is allowing Republicans to claim a piece of the health care debate as their own.

Mostly, though, he has a new appreciation of the medical professionals who were not part of the slowdown, and of how difficult the whole malpractice issue is.

He devoted much of his practice to medical malpractice issues.

"We're trying to spread out the responsibility for all of this to every institution involved in the malpractice issue and health care in general," Senator Vitale said.

He also suggested that his fellow Republicans were using the malpractice issue to score political points, calling their bill a "political document."

The whole malpractice issue turns abortion politics on its head, sending women who have chosen abortions to lawyers who oppose them.

So," Ms. Stone said, "they had to overcome the bias that we were in there looking at malpractice issues.

Still, when Governor Rell announced steps to address the malpractice issue on Feb. 8, there was no mention of caps for this year.