Copyright 2003 by The Orlando Sentinel)

Florida's medical-malpractice-insurance system is in big trouble.

Premiums for doctors and hospitals here are among the highest in the nation. That threatens the affordability and availability of medical care for patients.

The situation cries for action from the state Legislature, which opens Tuesday. But that shouldn't mean limiting jury awards and thereby taking decisions out of the hands of judges and juries. There is no conclusive evidence that would solve the problem.

The signs of the problem are all around, from area hospitals threatening to close trauma centers to specialists leaving for states where insurance is cheaper. Still, there is no consensus about the reasons behind Florida's high premiums.

The interest groups that have been battling over the problem -- doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, trial lawyers -- disagree about its causes. Each is armed with statistics. Given the huge economic stakes, it's hard to know whom to believe.

Gov. Jeb Bush's task force on malpractice insurance, chaired by University of Central Florida President John Hitt, has recommended a $250,000 cap on jury awards covering pain and suffering, known as noneconomic damages. The task force made 59 other recommendations, but its report singled out a cap as the most important one.

Like other advocates of caps on noneconomic damages, the Hitt task force cited "California's successful experience with a cap." But that state's $250,000 cap doesn't tell the whole story behind its lower malpractice premiums.

California enacted its cap in 1975. Yet, over the next 13 years, its malpractice premiums followed national trends, rising sharply during the mid-1980s. It wasn't until the state's citizens approved a package of strict insurance regulations in 1988 that malpractice rates fell significantly in California.

Surveys of rates in other states with and without caps also cast doubt on the argument that caps necessarily lead to lower premiums. Most recently, a draft legislative report in Kentucky found no statistical difference in premiums between the two categories.

It's true that a cap on noneconomic damages would not limit malpractice victims or their families from collecting awards to cover economic damages, including lost wages. But that option wouldn't be open to nonworking victims, including children, the elderly and stay-at-home mothers. With a cap, parents in cases like that of 17-year-old Jesica Santillan, the victim of a botched heart- lung transplant, could be left with almost nothing after legal costs.

Legislators need to take measures to attack the malpractice- insurance problem, including insurance and legal reforms as well as tighter medical discipline. We will revisit those solutions in future editorials.

But limiting patients' rights to collect damages in court is not the answer.