Posted on 05/17/2023 8:45:12 AM PDT by CFW
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster unceremoniously signed a measure to repeal the state’s certificate of need regulations for most health care facilities.
The measure, S.164, establishes a three-year sunset of the CON requirement for hospitals except in counties that do not have one, where the mandate is repealed immediately. Observers say eight Palmetto State counties do not have a hospital.
"South Carolinians will have greater access to affordable health care services with the repeal of the certificate of need laws," McMaster said in a statement. "Everyone benefits when the proven power of the free market is unleashed in our state."
States started requiring certificates of need in the 1970s in the wake of congressional action to allow the federal government to withhold money from states that did not institute a program. Congress removed the incentives a decade later, but many states maintained the mandates.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecentersquare.com ...
In other news in the southeast:
https://www.thecentersquare.com/tennessee/article_24bd2ace-f4be-11ed-be17-5fa9221626cd.html
“Lee signs Tennessee teacher pay increase, end to automatic dues payments”
https://www.thecentersquare.com/north_carolina/article_0b343770-f4a3-11ed-b042-177c04635d64.html
“Promise delivered: Republicans swiftly override Cooper abortion veto”
I have never figured out why they have these laws in the first place.
If a corporation or a organization wants to build a hospital somewhere, why stop them?...........
Get the damned government out of the way and consumers are better served, have greater choice, better supply, and lower prices.
Whoever would have thought that? (just kidding)
My memory may be somewhat clouded but I remember the debate about hospital construction in the late 1960s and 1970s.
At first there was concern that we did not have enought hospitals to support a growing population, so there was federal financial incentives to construct more hospitals.
Then federal bureacrats and others noticed that there was an over supply of hospitals and from that came requirements for a “certificate of need” to build one.
I am not sure about the hospitals but usually existing businesses have a tremendous amount of influence about the “need” for new competition.
Every business, personal or public, when it attains a certain size, will use its financial muscle to limit competition through the electoral legislative process................
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Adam Smith made that same observation in his book “The Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776.
GMTA....................
Indeed!
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