HARRISBURG -- Responding to scattered reports of physicians nationwide using unsavory tactics to fight for state aid and lawsuit liability caps, House Democratic leadership is pitching a law that would prohibit Pennsylvania doctors from refusing to treat a patient based on the patient's job, political opinions or litigation history.

It could be the first proposal of its kind in the United States, and it's already drawing criticism from the Pennsylvania Medical Society, which said the law is unnecessary and would unfairly target doctors, when attorneys -- doctors' nemesis in the fight for lawsuit caps -- are free to turn down clients as they please.

The bill drop, which may happen next week, comes as House Democrats and some Republicans are expressing skepticism with numbers provided by the medical society, which for more than a year has been saying physicians and especially high-risk specialists are leaving the state because malpractice premiums are too burdensome.

The doctors have parlayed those dire warnings into hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies, which offset those insurance premiums. The doctors' next policy goal is a cap on "pain and suffering" awards in medical malpractice suits, which they say will help reduce insurance rates further. Lawyers object to the caps, saying they support a patient's right to pursue large jury awards -- not to mention their right to represent them.

The policy conflicts have led to a rabid fight between attorneys' and doctors' groups. This week, The Associated Press reported that a South Carolina surgeon dropped a patient when he found out her husband was a trial lawyer, a New Hampshire neurosurgeon told the head of the state's trial lawyers that he wouldn't treat him for non-emergencies, and a plastic surgeon in Mississippi refused to treat the daughter of a state lawmaker.

While offering grudging praise for the campaign doctors have conducted thus far, state Rep. Mike Veon, the Democratic whip from Beaver Falls, said doctors have "taken this campaign a step too far."

Chuck Moran, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Medical Society, said the association doesn't approve of such tactics. But a law preventing retaliation like the kind carried out in South Carolina, New Hampshire and Mississippi is overkill, he said.

Meanwhile, the fact that the hardball tactics are being used across the country, Veon said, leaves him wondering: If 44 of the 50 states have a malpractice "crisis" that is forcing doctors to seek employment elsewhere, where are all the doctors going, exactly? Veon and House Minority Leader H. William DeWeese claimed that only California, Wyoming, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Indiana and Louisiana have insurance and litigation climates that doctors find satisfactory.

That's why Veon and DeWeese yesterday repeated their call for an independent panel to research how many doctors are in the state, and whether that number has grown, dropped or stayed flat over the last decade.

Moran defended the doctors' claims, saying: "This is a crisis. This is happening."

The med-mal issue could be debated in the House next week.

About 25 GOP members are seeking a vote on a resolution that would force a Senate bill allowing medical malpractice caps, which was approved by the Senate in March, out of committee and onto the House floor.