The state's largest provider of medical malpractice insurance for doctors has dropped its rates again because it's more difficult to sue doctors for huge sums of money.

The 7.5 percent rate decrease by the Texas Medical Liability Trust is the latest of several by insurers in recent years. Rates had more than doubled earlier in the decade as insurance companies struggled with their investments in a down economy and lawsuits against doctors drained capital reserves.

But in 2003, medical malpractice lawsuit awards in Texas were capped at $250,000 per defendant.

(T4T: this statement is false! Prop 12 only capped pain and suffering awards at $250,000 per defendant!  This reporter should have done better research!)

"This is welcome news for Texas doctors," said Dr. Howard Marcus, chairman of the Texas Alliance for Patient Access. "Falling insurance rates and growing numbers of high-risk specialists are proof positive that Texas' landmark reforms are working."

Marcus' group is a lobbying coalition representing hospitals and doctors who were feeling the crunch of high liability insurance rates. Supporters of the legislation said the high rates were limiting access to health care in some parts of the state by driving doctors out of areas considered to be more litigious, especially along the border.

The insurance company rate cut, which takes effect next year, will save Texas doctors it insures about $48 million a year when coupled with a $35 million dividend. That dividend will be paid to policyholders when policies are renewed in 2007.

The firm has cut rates by 29.5 percent, including the 2007 decrease, since Texas voters approved Proposition 12 three years ago. Texas Medical Liability Trust represents about half of the doctors in the state.

Other rates cuts haven't been announced for next year, but other companies have been slashing rates after heavy run-ups in premiums in 2002 and '03.

One of those is The Doctors Co., which cut rates by 18 percent in March.

"Things have gone exactly as we predicted they would go," said Dr. Richard Anderson, chief executive of The Doctors Co. He said reductions of 20 percent to 30 percent were anticipated when the caps on jury awards were proposed.

Anderson said that before the law passed, the legal system for plaintiffs "still remained something of a lottery ticket," prompting lawyers to take more marginal cases. He said that doesn't mean doctors and hospitals won't still be sued under the new rules, but that fewer lawsuits will be attractive to plaintiff lawyers.

What made insurance companies nervous in Texas, including some that left the market, was that "Texas had the highest frequency of lawsuits against doctors in the history of the solar system," Anderson said, with some doctors getting hit with two to three claims a year.

But one lobbying group representing consumers, Texas Watch, says capping the rates three years ago will let wrongdoers escape accountability.

"Texas families need real legal reforms that tackle the growing problem of medical errors and strengthen accountability measures for wrongdoers," Texas Watch officials said in a statement.