Tennessee Lawmakers Want Total Removal Of CON Laws To Follow Extensive Reforms
Image Credit: Canva
The Tennessee Conservative Staff –
While Tennessee lawmakers passed new legislation to reform the state’s certificate of need law, some state representatives say it needs to go altogether.
State Representatives David Hawk (R-Greeneville-District 5), Timothy Hill (R-Blountville-District 3), and Bud Hulsey (R-Kingsport-District 2) were panel members at an event hosted by Americans for Prosperity on Saturday.
The trio spent time taking questions regarding healthcare policies, specifically the process for a certificate of need.
In the most recent General Session, lawmakers passed House Bill 2269 (HB2269) / Senate Bill 2009 (SB2009), which would gradually remove a majority of Tennessee’s certificate of needs laws.
Certificate of Needs (CON) laws were first mandated by the federal government in 1972 as a way to provide better consumer costs for medical care by limiting the number of facilities available in a certain area and regulating the services that those facilities provide.
Congress did away with the requirement in 1987, but Tennessee was one of several states who opted to keep the laws in place at the state level.
HB2269 would eliminate CONs for counties that do not have their own acute care hospital beginning on July 1, 2025.
Burn units, neonatal intensive care, ICF/IDD care facilities, PET and MRI facilities on December 1, 2025.
Ambulatory surgical centers, linear accelerators, and long-term care hospitals will no longer have CON laws beginning on December 1, 2027 and open-heart surgery centers will follow on December 1, 2029.
The removal of CON laws will mean that these facilities will be able to open without seeking permissions or existing facilities will be allowed to expand to include more options. This will provide greater access to care, especially in rural areas.
“We need other options in our region and the ability to find care,” Hawk told the crowd.
Hawk, Hill, and Hulsey stated that removing CONs completely would be the best option for increasing competition and improving healthcare in their area.
“Tennesseans should not need a government permission slip to access health care services,” Americans for Prosperity Tennessee State Director Tori Venable previously stated. “Ending Certificate of Need laws is vital for our entire state, especially in rural counties. These reforms increase access to emergency life-saving care and encourage more competition- ultimately leading to lower health care costs for Tennesseans.”
HB2269 is awaiting signatures before going into effect as a law.
Related article:
Good!
What also needs to happen is remove private equity corporations from owning and running health care which has increased cost not lowered and they block patients for excess to needed care by trying to do multiple unnecessary visits or procedures that have nonthing to do with patients medical problem by using office mgt forcing physician to say its diagnostic test when patients has already been diagnosed by another physician in the same field and Value Base care payment is a form of racketeering against patients health by not receiving needed care but splitting cost savings between insurance & medical facilities a to prevent needed care which had caused medical conditions to get worse so in long run increase cost and suffering to citizens. It also causes physicians to falsified medical records. Advantage plans are racketeering by having either insurance itself or provider change diagnosis to more serious health issue than it is and how can either make & rechange diagnosis on a patient grandparent that they never met or GP never lived in Tn ? Numerous people are noticing their medical records falsified. How can this be best practices and used for Learning Healthcare system that’s based on misinformation/ lies. When private equity corporations run health care look at how Bayer company asked Nazi for 150 women to experiment on. They all died. Just read reviews of any physicians across US and the bad out rank the good. People with chronic illnesses and or pain are being blocked from care if they refuse pain management either bc can’t afford it and it doesn’t work , especially for those needing surgery.