certificate of need

RALEIGH — The sixth anniversary of the federal Affordable Care Act offers N.C. policymakers a chance to reflect on changes that could help improve health care in this state. That’s…

What the healthcare industry needs is a strong dose of disruptive innovation — relaxing regulations that will increase provider competition, force downward pressure on costs, and enhance patient choice. CON ultimately picks who gets to compete within the health care sector. Reforming the law will by no means untangle the complexities of health care, but state lawmakers should capitalize on an opportunity to make one of the most highly regulated industries a little less heavy on the red tape and a little more patient friendly.

Overall, North Carolina ranks 23rd in the nation and 5th among the 12 states of the Southeast in freedom. North Carolina ranks 16th in fiscal freedom, 18th in educational freedom, 36th in regulatory freedom, and 46th in health care freedom.

Four decades’ worth of data and research into CON laws have shown that they fail to lower health care costs; if anything, they raise them. Despite this, North Carolina hosts one of the most restrictive CON programs in the country. State leaders could best prevent unnecessary increases in health care costs by repealing CON.

Click here to view and here to listen to Joseph Coletti discussing this Policy Report. RALEIGH — North Carolina lawmakers should eliminate certificate-of-need laws, mandated health insurance benefits,…

North Carolina policymakers should eliminate provider licensing, certificate-of-need laws, and mandated health insurance benefits. Short of this, the state can accept alternative forms of credentialing and ensure consumers have the right to purchase optional benefits at additional cost. These regulations limit access to health care providers and health insurance by artificially constraining markets.

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.

North Carolina recently filed a lawsuit going after private restraints of trade. But if the state really wants to reduce unfair trade practices and help consumers, it should eliminate or modify its own anti-competitive policies. The certificate of need law, occupational licensing, and other state-imposed restraints of trade hurt consumers and the economic freedom of North Carolinians.