Tort Reform: There has been an alarming trend of doctors fleeing states that are trial lawyer playgrounds. Texas is not one of them. Thanks to its sane limits on malpractice lawsuits, the state is a physician magnet

The migration of doctors into Texas has become such a flood that the state cannot process their license applications fast enough. It should be no surprise that the Texas Medical Board received 4,000 applications for medical licenses last year, a 33% increase over 2005. Or that applications jumped 88% from the first half of 2003 to the first half of 2006. Here's why:

Four years ago, through a constitutional amendment, the state capped noneconomic damages in medical malpractice suits. The result has been a 21% drop in the average malpractice insurance premium. An Associated Press report tells of one oncologist who moved from Chicago to Austin and saw his malpractice insurance premium cut by three-fourths.

Though the system is straining to process the applications and taxpayers are having to fund added staff, Texans will benefit from the $250,000 cap the state has placed on noneconomic damages that can be awarded in a malpractice lawsuit. (The same cap is in place for hospitals and other medical facilities.) The deluge of applicants ensures that the Texas board can choose the best doctors to practice there. It will also give Texans more choice.

Residents of other states aren't so fortunate.

• Obstetricians were stampeding out of Nevada a few years ago because that state had no limits on legal damages that could be wrenched out of a doctor.

• The University of Nevada Medical Center in Las Vegas, the only Level 1 trauma facility in the region, shut down for 10 days in 2002 when specialists resigned due to high insurance costs. Doctors returned only after striking a deal with the government that limited their liability.

(In stark contrast, areas of Texas where trauma patients once had to be flown elsewhere for treatment are now getting the doctors they need to staff their trauma centers.)

• The early part of this decade saw doctors leaving their practices in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and West Virginia because of the legal environment.

• The American Medical Association named Washington a "crisis" state in 2005 because physicians weary with soaring insurance premiums were leaving or cutting back their practices.

Don't blame the insurers. They're forced to raise rates to cover their costs when plaintiffs' lawyers are winning absurdly large jury awards in states where there are no limits.

Blame lawmakers who are less interested in curbing freewheeling malpractice lawsuits than in raking in trial lawyers' campaign contributions.