KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Every Missouri resident who goes to a doctor might end up paying more because of the state's medical malpractice insurance crisis, KMBC's Micheal Mahoney reported.

Insurance rates for some doctors are doubling, and in many cases, tripling.

There are caps on the malpractice awards in Missouri, although you wouldn't know it lately. Clearly, the state has a problem in this area, Mahoney reported. Even doctors are complaining about insurance bills these days.

Rosemary Lowe has seen the system. Lowe came to believe that poor medical care contributed to her mother's death, so she sued.

"You feel like you have no place to turn, no one to talk to. You have nothing left to do but get angry," Lowe said.

Lowe settled with some of the doctors, but a trial was aborted because of jury misconduct, Mahoney reported.

In 2002, Missouri saw more than 700 malpractice claims -- a 6 percent increase in claims against doctors in a single year.

But the amount paid out -- about 25 percent greater than the previous record -- was partly because of soaring health care costs.

Patricia Mooney-Smith, a Missouri obstetrician, said judgments in malpractice suits have risen across the nation.

Intermed, the state's largest medical malpractice insurance firm, has raised its rates 200 percent in three years, Mahoney reported. Those hikes are mainly due to a January 2002 court ruling -- the Scott decision -- that turned Missouri malpractice upside down.

Before that decision, there was a limit of $557,000 for pain and suffering in each malpractice case, no matter how many doctors or hospitals were involved. But the Scott ruling said that limit applied to each defendant. So after the decision, for example, a judgment against four doctors rose from a possible $557,000 to $2.2 million.

An insurance broker for the prestigious Arthur Galahger firm said that is a major problem.

"They're having to pay out more in damages on these suits than what's coming in from the premiums they've collected," broker Cathy Pinkham said.

Those payouts are why doctors have marched on the state Capitol to ask for a change in Missouri's laws. They want the old damage cap restored, which would hopefully lower insurance rates, Mahoney said.

Such a move would help, but there are some other solutions.

Scott Lakin, the state insurance commissioner, would like to see Missouri's casualty and property firms pool resources to form a joint underwriting association.

"It's basically a state-sponsored plan, a plan for last resort," Lakin said.

But if the JUA ever ran out of money, all of the contributing insurance companies would be required to make up the loss -- meaning residents' home or car insurance could jump, Mahoney reported. Doctors have created their own mutual insurance company to provide some coverage, which has worked in the past to stabilize rates in Missouri. A similar plan is working right now in Kansas, Mahoney said.

But in the past, when Missouri doctors formed a mutual company, they eventually sold out to the big insurance companies.

And there's talk of lowering the damage caps, but some are not sure that is the best solution.

"I think it would be much more important to deal with the Scott decision than the cap, in and of itself," Pinkham said.

But has the insurance industry done this to itself?

In the 1990s, insurance companies sold a lot of discount malpractice insurance in Missouri.

"For competitive reasons they'd sell the premiums for less than what the actual risk assessment is," Lakin said.

When the economy went bad, so did the insurance industry's investments. That, plus the Scott decision, destroyed the damage limit and left Missouri's malpractice insurance industry unprepared, Mahoney said.

"(The industry) just didn't plan for it well enough ... I mean, you could say it was a mistake," Pinkhman said. "The models were skewed because they didn't plan enough for the cost of the claims."

Doctors would like to pass their rising costs rising costs on, but many are tied to rates set by the government or their contracts with health care companies, Mahoney reported.

Consumers of medical care should watch for a crackdown on bad doctors -- the 20 percent of physicians who end up with 80 percent of the claims -- as patients' lawyers, doctors and insurance companies look for a way out of the medical malpractice mess.