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Posted on 06/07/2026 10:05:51 AM PDT by Twotone
Is your business "needed"?
Bizarrely, in many states, if you want to start a business, you first must convince bureaucrats that your business is "needed."
Four years ago, Louisiana blocked social worker Ursula Newell-Davis from helping kids with special needs. Bureaucrats said she hadn't proved her business was needed.
"Why does the state of Louisiana have the right to stop me from doing what I love?" she asks in this update video.
Good question. Newell-Davis has a master's degree and a social work license. For two decades, she's helped kids with special needs.
One, Kamal, told us he struggled to make friends, until Newell-Davis "helped teach me how to talk to people."
Kamal's mother is grateful: "She explained to me things that I didn't understand about my kids. It allowed me to go back into the community and work."
Newell-Davis helped many families. But four years ago, she tried to help more kids by doing short-term respite work.
Louisiana wouldn't let her.
"You have these skills, you could help people," I tell her. "What do you think is going on with these regulators?"
"Louisiana wants to limit how many agencies they have to regulate," she replies. "Make it easy for the state."
Anastasia Boden of the Pacific Legal Foundation is helping Newell-Davis sue Louisiana, arguing that its regulation is unconstitutional.
"Louisiana gives you no clue about how to prove you're needed," says Boden. "That would be difficult for even the best entrepreneurs. Nobody can prove with any certainty that they're needed."
Right. I can't prove Stossel TV is "needed." Is McDonald's needed? What about the local phone store?
"The only way to find out is to open up your doors and try," says Boden.
But Newell-Davis isn't allowed to try, even after giving regulators what they demanded: She rented office space, paid fees, and wrote seven pages about why her work is "needed."
Louisiana decided that wasn't good enough.
That's what usually happens. The year Newell-Davis applied, the state turned down 75 percent of applicants. The health department says it limits "the burden on regulators."
"That's just not a legitimate excuse," complains Boden, "that government doesn't have enough money to administer people's constitutional rights."
Stossel TV reached out, but state officials wouldn't talk to us about their rule.
Thirty-five states and Washington, D.C. have (appropriately named) "CON" laws requiring entrepreneurs to get a Certificate of Need before opening certain businesses.
This creates nasty side effects. Try not to get injured in Kentucky. The state's CON law for ambulances results in longer wait times for transportation.
But Louisiana is the only state that applies this nonsense to social workers doing respite work. The result: "Consumers in Louisiana are less satisfied with their care," says Boden. "It might be easier for the government, but that's not benefiting consumers."
If these laws don't benefit consumers, why do they stay on the books?
"Hospital [and] medical associations give money," explains Boden.
"They don't want the competition," I ask.
"Of course not! But the result is to deprive people of economic opportunity and to make care worse," says Boden.
Now, four years later, Boden's latest lawsuit winds its way through America's bureaucratic courts, and bureaucrats still won't let Newell-Davis do respite work.
But good news: Newell-Davis now helps people with special needs by employing them at her new fried chicken restaurant.
At least Louisiana's government doesn't get to decide if a new restaurant is "needed."
What Louisiana's bureaucrats do is just wrong.
So often, government just gets in the way.
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These laws exist to prevent competition to existing businesses. It’s purely monopolistic crony capitalism.
You prove your business is “needed” by making “campaign contributions,” silly.
And to provide an excuse for employing more government workers.
Regulators should have to prove in court in a jury trial that THEIR attempt to regulate something is absolutely necessary.
What Louisiana’s inability to handle the volume of regulatory actions that occur is that IT HAS TOO MANY REGULATIONS AND EVEN GOOD ONES GO TO FAR.
Methinks this is about getting the Feds and the state to pay her, not the clients. I doubt she would have a problem if the clients paid cash out of pocket....
This is not about payment.
The Kentucky Certificate of Need process prevents the proliferation of health care facilities, health services and major medical equipment that increase the cost of quality health care in the commonwealth.
Pursuant to KRS 216B.061, unless otherwise provided in this chapter, no person shall do any of the following without first obtaining a certificate of need:
(a) Establish a health facility;
(b) Obligate a capital expenditure which exceeds the capital expenditure minimum;
(c) Make a substantial change in the bed capacity of a health facility;
(d) Make a substantial change in a health service;
(e) Make a substantial change in a project;
(f) Acquire major medical equipment;
(g) Alter a geographical area or alter a specific location which has been designated on a certificate of need or license;
(h) Transfer an approved certificate of need for the establishment of a new health facility or the replacement of a licensed facility.
https://www.chfs.ky.gov/agencies/os/oig/dcn/Pages/cn.aspx
“Why not just let people open businesses and, if they are unneeded, they will shut down?”
Federal law, i.e. the PPACA, doesn’t allow states to control things on the demand side, so states try to control costs at the supply side.
All that being said, certificate of need systems are a poor way of trying to control costs.
Health care funding systems really shouldn’t be required by law to pay for one-on-one care because it fosters inequality.
“This is not about payment.”
It’s about billing insurance companies and Medicaid.
Indiana Medicaid has paid something like $680/hour for autism care according to an article in The Economist.
There’s no certificate of need for babysitters. My neighbor Connie got something 60 cents an hour when she was young.
There is little worse than a bureaucrat who has a little authority.
She is not being allowed a business license no matter how she is being paid.
She is not being a "baby-sitter". She is a therapist who is teaching children with problems how to cope so they can fit more easily into the world.
Apparently she also makes good fried chicken.
The state morticians licensing board had a them sent a cease and desist letter advising that only licensed morticians could sell coffins. I don't recall if/how the matter resolved itself.
On the upside, when the City/Parish of Lafayette, where I was living decided to contract a company to do speed and redlight cameras, the state Private Investigator licensing board was able to show that what the camera company was doing technically fell within the purview and definition of regulated private investigation and was able to significantly delay their implementation until the company had jumped through the hoops of securing a PI license.
The politicians who write these laws are the ones who most certainly need to prove that they are needed!
If she were from pakistan she’d have no problem...
“what the camera company was doing technically fell within the purview and definition of regulated private investigation and was able to significantly delay their implementation until the company had jumped through the hoops of securing a PI license. “
Regulatory B.S. The traffic cameras are a non-specific blunderbuss of images, not a person-specific investigation, nor even directed to a specific investigation intent.
They may have “private” and “useful for after the fact investigation” in common, but 99% of what their “private eye” have no specific target to investigate, if ever. The data may be useful after the fact, but the camera eyes have no been looking for someone specific.
If the state wanted to regulate traffic cameras, it should be the elected government representatives that legislated that intent specifically and not unelected bureaucrats deciding to extend their powers.
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