Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee will try to referee a dispute between the state's doctors and lawyers. Malpractice insurance has become so expensive that some physicians, and even some hospitals, have stopped delivering babies and performing high-risk procedures. Access to a given service in some places has become a problem. So doctors want the state to help control costs by setting up a panel to screen malpractice cases before they go to court.

The two sides, which met with the Monitor'seditors last month to air their views, remain far apart on proposals to create a review panel. Doctors want a version of the panel that has operated in Maine for more than two decades: three people - one retired judge, one lawyer and one doctor - whose decision, if unanimous, would be admitted in court.

Lawyers argue that a doctor's presence on the board, if only by dint of having special knowledge, would prejudice the proceeding against patients. They want claims screened by a single judge experienced in such cases, a proposal that's anathema to physicians.

Malpractice insurance premiums -at least at one of the three companies that provides the insurance - are 30 percent to 40 percent lower in Maine for a given specialty. Both sides seem to agree on that figure. But they do not agree on why that's so, nor is there a clear-cut answer.

No information is available about cases that are settled because the agreements are secret. The vacuum that creates makes accurate comparisons impossible, but awards to patients in both states in cases that do go to trial are comparable. Doctors say lower administrative costs account for Maine's lower insurance prices. That, in turn, may reflect a difference in the cost of defending a malpractice suit in a low-income state versus a high-income one. Cultural and demographic differences between the states may also come into play.

Both sides agree that New Hampshire has no significant problem with frivolous medical lawsuits or outrageous jury awards. So the single-judge panel represents something of a compromise for the lawyers, who don't believe the system is broken. Malpractice cases are lengthy and require expert testimony from witnesses who are themselves physicians. So they are incredibly expensive to file. That prevents law firms, which are paid only if they win the case, from filing claims that they don't believe have real merit.

Malpractice insurance is absurdly high, and access to care is becoming an issue. One answer, lawyers say, would be to pay physicians more to offset the higher cost of the premiums. But that would only make health care even more unaffordable, and specialists in some fields already make $500,000 per year.

We don't know whether a malpractice review panel should have one member, three or five, or whether it should meet at a round or square table. We do know that the jury is still out on whether the panels work and, if they do, why. We also know that, as miserable as the insurance situation is, it represents but a small fraction of the problems affecting the nation's collapsing health care system.

Several bills are calling for the entire insurance situation to be monitored and analyzed. That should be done, though it means gaining access to reliable information, in aggregate, about insurance settlements in malpractice cases.

Given the lack of solid information, any change the Legislature makes should be modest. If no compromise can be reached, lawmakers should follow the doctor's dictum and "first, do no harm."

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Monitor editorial