Health care policy decisions usually come with federal strings attached, so it’s a once in a while opportunity when state legislators have full authority to grant North Carolinians more freedom over their health care options.

Repealing Certificate of Need (CON) laws is a perfect example. This law requires that medical providers must ask permission from state bureaucrats to build or expand an existing health facility or update major medical equipment. Who better than the government to know what’s best for patients?

CON was originally mandated by the federal government as a way to cut down on underused services and to preserve access to health care in underserved areas, but Congress classified the law as a market failure in the late 1980s and made these programs optional for states. If the federal government recognized back then that this law failed to deliver on its intentions, odds are that this is still the case.

As the budget negotiations drag on, legislators have a choice. Derailing CON can boost North Carolina’s overall health care freedom ranking from 46 to 25. Keeping the law on the books will instead continue to harm rural health care, burden patients with higher costs, protect hospitals from competition, and stifle innovation in the health care sector. 

 

Health Care Freedom Rankings

 

You can check out the methodology and variables used to calculate our First In Freedom Index here