Eliminate the Anti-Healthcare and Anti-Competitive Certificate of Need Process

The certificate of need (CON) process requires healthcare providers hoping to expand or develop new healthcare facilities in the state to get approval by state officials. This approval is not, however, to ensure the health and safety of employees or patients. Instead, healthcare providers are tasked with demonstrating a “need” for the expansion or new healthcare facility in the area the providers hope to serve. The certificate of need process was initially suggested by the federal government, which incentivized states to adopt CON laws. Almost every state created a CON system. Just a few years later, the federal government studied the results of CON laws, which it had hoped would lead to a decrease in healthcare costs, and realized the ineffectiveness of the programs. The federal government ended the incentivizing of CON laws and state after state repealed the system because of its inability to reduce costs and its anti-competitive nature. Today, Alabama maintains its CON regime though twelve states have fully repealed their laws and neighboring states of Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia have recently restricted the CON process. Alabama should eliminate the CON process just as Texas did in 1985