CARSON CITY, NEV. ? Faced with a medical insurance crisis that temporarily closed Nevada’s top trauma center and has some doctors limiting how many babies they’ll deliver, state lawmakers plan to meet today to cap malpractice awards.

The rare special session comes four days after President Bush called for a nationwide ceiling on jury awards, saying it would drive down soaring health care costs and save taxpayers money. Democrats countered that the proposal would help the insurance industry, not patients.

Nevada is one of a dozen states troubled by rising premiums, tied to awards by state juries in malpractice cases, according to the American Medical Assn. The others are Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and West Virginia.

Nevada’s problems began in December, when the company that had insured 60 percent of the state’s doctors began canceling its malpractice policies.

Facing losses of nearly $1 billion, Minnesota-based St. Paul Cos. said it was getting out of the malpractice insurance business worldwide. Other companies also pulled out of Nevada, citing the high cost of settling malpractice claims in a state with no cap on jury awards.

Remaining insurers quoted policy prices so high that some doctors said they’d be forced to restrict or even give up their practices altogether.

Altogether, more than 140 physicians mostly in high-risk specialties have shut their practices because of insurance costs, according to the Nevada State Medical Assn. And Nevada’s only top-level trauma center, in Las Vegas, closed for 10 days this month after 58 orthopedic doctors temporarily quit due to skyrocketing insurance costs.