South Carolina’s CON program is one of the most restrictive in the United States. South Carolina requires a CON for 18 different services, including hospital renovations/new equipment that is over $600,000 and adding one or more hospital beds to a facility.
Certificate of Need is that odious, decades-old law that requires permission from the state (and often one’s competitors) to build a healthcare facility or even offer a healthcare service.
PPI Senior Fellow Oran Smith is quoted in this article from The Center Square.
PPI Senior Fellow Oran Smith is interviewed in this article on the upcoming audit of South Carolina's CON law.
South Carolina’s Legislative Audit Council (LAC) has voted to conduct a performance audit of South Carolina’s long-standing and anti-competitive healthcare regulations known as Certificate of Need (CON). This decision was in response to a July 16 letter signed by thirteen South Carolina Senators requesting the review.
PPI is commended for our work on scope of practice law reform in this article by Philanthropy Roundtable.
PPI visiting fellow Dr. Marcelo Hochman coauthored this op-ed in USA Today to discuss healthcare reform and repealing CON laws. Policymakers talk about comprehensive health care reform. They see a broken system and want to fix everything at once. Emergency room workers can relate, but they take a more strategic approach when patients arrive with multiple
Senator Wes Climer, the bill sponsor, has been leading the fight on repealing CON and opened yesterday’s testimony by arguing in no uncertain terms that CON cannot be reformed and must be repealed in its entirety
The bill (S.290) sponsored by Senator Climer and others, which would repeal CON in its entirety, is now on the Senate calendar.
It is urgent that South Carolina addresses this anti-competitive, regulatory “wall” surrounding hospitals and allows the free market to work. As Senator Jackson said during the debate, “we could literally save lives.”
