Confirming the hopes of supporters of Texas’s Proposition 12 (see Sept. 4, Sept. 6, Sept. 14), various companies that write medical malpractice insurance have moved quickly to cut the rates they charge doctors. “Texas Medical Liability Trust, which insures more than 3,000 Houston-area doctors, will cut rates by 12 percent, effective Jan. 1. … Dr. Charles W. Bailey Jr., president of the Texas Medical Association, says he expected insurers to reduce rates after the proposition passed, but didn’t think it would happen so quickly. Outside insurers could be returning to write policies in Texas again in the near future, Bailey predicts.” (Allison Wollam, “Medical insurance rates roll back”, Houston Business Journal, Oct. 6). During the Prop 12 campaign, the editorialists of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, who opposed the measure, deemed “debatable” the proposition that the damage limitations at issue “will bring down, or at least stabilize, insurance rates” (“Keeping courts open”, Aug. 24).

Filed under: Houston, medical