central planning

If asked who sets interest rates in for the economy, most of us would answer that the Federal Reserve (the Fed) does. In other words, a government-created central authority “sets”…

RALEIGH — Medical providers in North Carolina must receive permission from the state — called a certificate of need (CON) — to add services such as extra hospital beds or…

In North Carolina and 34 other states, if you are a health care entrepreneur and you want to do anything from adding a new wing or extra beds to an existing hospital, to opening an office that offers MRI or other services, you need a “Certificate of Need” from the state. If this sounds like the kind of central planning one might find in a socialist economy – it is. In North Carolina, the central planning authority is known as the Health Planning Development Agency, part of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. The role of this agency is to plan economic activity provided by medical-care facilities. This is done down to the most minute detail, circumventing the most basic function of private decision-making in a free enterprise system, i.e., the allocation of resources based on entrepreneurial insight and risk taking.