JLF’s Jordan Roberts has made a national publication again, this time quoted in a Forbes article by Patrick Gleason. The piece focused on Certificate of Need (CON) laws across the country. Gleason cites CON reform as a way to lower health care costs:
One of the first steps state lawmakers can take to bend the health care cost curve is to reform or eliminate Certificate Of Need (CON) laws, which permit existing health institutions, such as hospitals, to essentially veto the application to the state for a competing entity to expand, make care-improving capital investments, or enter a market.
Many states have dozens of these laws covering everything from the number of hospital beds to MRI machines (see chart below).
According to Jordan Roberts — a health care policy analyst at the John Locke Foundation, a Raleigh-based think tank – sixteen states have fully repealed Certificate of Need laws “because of the demonstrated costs to patients and state-sanctioned benefits to incumbent facilities.” These laws, however, are not universal. Gleason refences JLF’s Jordan Roberts:
These laws increase the price of health care by artificially restricting the supply. North Carolina is near the top of the list for highest number of CON laws.
One Winston-Salem surgeon, Dr. Gajendra Singh, is suing with the help of the nonprofit Institute for Justice to end these laws in North Carolina.
Read the full Forbes story here. Learn more about CON laws and Dr. Singh’s case here.
