A years-long push to expand competition in the health-care industry passed the Senate Health Committee Monday and soon may reach the Senate floor. Under current certificate-of-need laws, hospitals and medical providers must apply to the state planning board before they can build or expand facilities. North…
A push to reform North Carolina’s certificate-of-need restrictions on health providers will make it to the Senate floor. A watered-down version of CON reform laws, House Bill 126, passed the Senate Rules Committee Tuesday, July 2. CON laws require…
Senators opposing North Carolina’s onerous certificate-of-need laws have no plans to stop pushing reforms. “I am still committed to CON reform, and we will make it happen,” Sen. Joyce Krawiec, R-Forsyth, told Carolina Journal on Friday, June 21. “We look forward to…
The struggle over Vidant Health, the regional hospital network affiliated with the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, escalated Thursday. In a radio interview, University of North Carolina Board of Governors Chairman Harry Smith said there are no plans “in any shape or form for UNC…
Legislative opponents of certificate of need laws are confident. This may be the year they prevail against the restrictive health-care regulations. But opposition from the powerful hospital lobby remains. Hospitals claim competition would hurt their bottom line. It would place hospitals, especially rural ones, at risk…
Texas did it in 1985. California did it in 1987. Pennsylvania did it in 1996. New Hampshire did it in 2016. Florida did it in 2019. I’m talking about states that repealed their Certificate of Need laws. CON laws were implemented by almost every state as a condition to receiving…
A bipartisan group of House members hopes to break a regulatory chokehold on surgical facilities. Reps. Billy Richardson, D-Cumberland; Ed Goodwin, R-Chowan; and David Rogers, R-Rutherford, on Tuesday, April 16, filed House Bill 857. The bill abolishes certificate-of-need laws preventing standalone…
Top-ranking senators have introduced an omnibus health-care bill that would add severely disabled people to the Medicaid rolls and abolish restrictive certificate of need laws. Sens. Joyce Krawiec, R-Forsyth, and Dan Bishop, R-Mecklenburg, discussed Senate Bill 361, The Health Care Expansion Act of 2019,…
If Medicaid expansion forces taxpayers to pick up the tab for a service that was either previously paid for some other way or not consumed in the first place, there is no reduction in the cost of care.
The state treasurer and the N.C. Healthcare Association can’t reach consensus over how to pay for health insurance for state employees. The governor and some legislative leaders are advocating Medicaid expansion to cover an additional 600,000 people, which would cost the state roughly $600 million the first two years. The…
