Abstract
Certificate of Need (CON) laws serve as a major barrier to entry in the healthcare market, which already suffers from a high degree of market concentration. Certificate of Public Advantage (COPA) laws give healthcare providers robust antitrust immunity by allowing a merger to go through that would oftentimes be illegal. These COPAs can lead to a reduced quality of care for patients, reduced access to care in the communities where hospitals with COPAs operate, reduced wages for hospital employees in the relevant geographic market, and increased prices for patients seeking care. Given the essential nature of healthcare services, addressing the anticompetitive effects of CON and COPA laws is of the utmost importance.
In places like Northeast Tennessee, the anticompetitive effects of CON and COPA laws are particularly troubling when we consider how little economic power the citizens in the region wield. In 2018, a COPA was granted that allowed the two largest hospitals in the region, Mountain States Health Alliance (Mountain States) and Wellmont Health Systems (Wellmont Health), to form a new entity, Ballad Health Systems (Ballad Health), in a merger. Since the merger in 2018, the citizens of Northeast Tennessee have been incredibly unsatisfied with what Ballad Health has done in their region. Accordingly, the state of Tennessee should eliminate, or at least greatly restructure, their CON laws and require Ballad Health to deliver on their promises that the state and Ballad used to justify the COPA being created in the first place. Additionally, states that are considering eliminating their CON laws or whether to grant a COPA to a hospital should carefully consider the harms that CON and COPA laws can cause.
Recommended Citation
Caleb Atkins, The Anticompetitive Nature of Certificate of Need and Certificate of Public Advantage Laws in the United States, 25 Marq. Ben & Soc. Welfare L. Rev. 289 (2024).