'Certificate of Need' Laws Challenged

From a John Stossel column comes good news: "Certificate of Need" laws -- cronyistic measures that restrict the supply of ambulances and hospital beds -- are now being challenged in a lawsuit by the Pacific Legal Foundation.

The lawsuit focuses on an ambulance company that wants to expand its service across a state line:

When they tried to expand into Kentucky, which is just a few minutes away from them, they learned it would be illegal.

It's illegal due to Certificate of Need laws, also called "CON" laws. In Kentucky and three other states, you have to get a Certificate of Need to run an ambulance service.

[Phillip] Truesdell doesn't think this is right.

He tells Stossel, "Anybody that draws breath ought to be allowed to work. Who gives the big man the right to say, 'You can't work here?'"

In addition to violating our right to contract, Certificate of Need laws worsened the impact of the Covid pandemic by exacerbating a hospital bed shortage and making it harder to address, to the point that many of the 34 states that had them on the books rolled them back.

Whatever the status of these laws post-pandemic, having them declared unconstitutional would be a good first step in making our medical sector better able to handle high demand in the future, not to mention making our government a better protector of our rights.

-- CAV