But Will It Cover Backstab Wounds?

Getting a patient's bill of rights he prefers just became tougher for President Bush because he strung along his friend, G.O.P. Congressman Charlie Norwood. When Democrat John Edwards introduced such a bill in the Senate last February, the White House opposed it largely because it let patients sue their HMOs for up to $5 million. The Administration got Norwood to hold off sponsoring a nearly identical bill in the House, promising to strike a compromise. Imagine his surprise when he found that Bush aides had secretly written a bill more to their liking with G.O.P. Senator Bill Frist, limiting jury awards to $500,000. But even that didn't shake Norwood until last week, when he determined he'd been played for a chump and introduced his bill. The White House complains that Norwood was inflexible. This week the Democratic-controlled Senate will take up Edwards' bill. Republicans will try to pick it apart, but they know it's an uphill fight. "You can never win an argument that people can't sue," says a G.O.P. aide. "It's un-American."

--Reported by John F. Dickerson and Douglas Waller