You write, "While I understand the need to have a cap on non-economic damages due to excessive jury awards...."
In every state that I know about, and presumably even Arkansas, jury awards are subject to review. In New York, at least, it's not uncommon for the trial judge to cut the award and enter judgment for a lesser amount, after which the appellate court cuts it even more.
Thus, focusing on "excessive jury awards" is a mistake. The correct question is whether there are excessive final judgments.
Are the insurance industry's spokesweasels correct in saying that companies are driven out of business by such judgments? One example they've pointed to is polio vaccine manufacturers. Some such companies were in fact driven out of business, after their defective vaccines caused polio. See, that's a good thing. The negligent companies folded and left the field to the companies that did their job competently. It shows that the tort system, without artificial caps on damages, is a necessary adjunct to a functioning free-market system.
I'll emulate your full disclosure: I'm a lawyer whose practice consists almost entirely of representing injured victims, many of them injured because of corporate malfeasance.
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