DOCTOR, DOCTOR, gimme the news... you make a bad case for lovin' you.

With apologies to the late Robert Palmer, the adjusted lyrics to his "Bad Case of Loving You" reflects my current feelings towards the organized healing profession in Pennsylvania.

As the state House considers legislation to cap monetary awards for pain and suffering in medical-malpractice cases - something docs long for and lawyers dread - two new items suggest doc slippage.

First, the Pennsylvania Medical Society is releasing new data on the number of docs in the state; seems the data argues against claims that physicians are fleeing as if from a fire.

You've heard the hype: "crisis," disappearing docs, there'll be none left, last doc out turn off the X-ray machine, 1,500 gone just last year.

Well, now the medical society says "the best number" is 507 docs lost over the last two years.

Granted, if one is yours or a specialist you need, you've got a crisis.

But, you tell me, does 507 out of roughly 34,000 docs constitute medical Armageddon? Or did things just get 66 percent better? And how much credibility do docs have when it comes to counting themselves?

When I ask a medical society spokesman why the data wasn't available before, he says it was just purchased and "very expensive."

Yeah, well, so is ignorance.

The second item is a proposed resolution at the American Medical Association's House of Delegates annual meeting starting today in Chicago. It encourages docs not to treat lawyers except in emergencies.

Killing lawyers is often the subject of jokes. Now, it seems, it's also the subject of policy.

The resolution, offered by a South Carolina delegate, says the AMA should adopt a position that it's "not unethical to refuse care to plaintiffs' attorneys and their spouses."

Just what we need, pee-oed Bubba docs deciding who gets health care.

No one seriously thinks it will pass, and it's explained away as an act of frustration.

But actions have consequences, even acts of PR lunacy.

Reaction so far ranges from state House Democrats calling for a task force to get an accurate doc-count by Nov. 1 (something Gov. Rendell, according to his office, does not oppose) to talk of legislation requiring docs sign agreements to treat lawyers or risk fines and loss of license.

The latter is just as silly as suggesting docs turn their backs on attorneys. But the former just might have some value.

I'm no fan of government task forces, especially in the hands of House Democrats, who couldn't organize an ice cream social on a June day.

But last year I argued for hard data on the number of docs before adopting hard policy and decried the fact no one's able to get good numbers.

I restate that argument now.

Taxpayers already spend $220 million a-year to help docs pay their insurance bills because of the med-mal "crisis."

Why not put some people under oath and find out the truth?

If docs want to change the state constitution to allow caps on case payouts, they ought to be willing to make their case based on fact rather than hype, based on truth rather than threats.

Otherwise, arguing against caps might just prove (again, sorry, Robert) simply irresistible.