The State Senate froze HB350, the bill to reform the restrictive Certificate of Public Need regime. The State Senate sent it to the Finance Committee, which kicked it into next year (if it survives).
Score one for the rent-seekers.
Given how the COPN regime has led to serious reductions in health care supply, meaning higher prices, higher insurance rates, and less health care availability for all (here’s Norm Leahy on the subject), the Senate’s decision is a disappointment.
On the plus side, the House of Delegates isn’t giving up. From Speaker Bill Howell’s spokesman, Matthew Moran:
The Speaker is asking several House members to begin working directly with health care providers on COPN legislation for next session, bypassing organizations that have been counterproductive and an impediment to meaningful reform. The House remains committed to increasing access, improving health outcomes, and keeping costs down by reforming COPN.
Extra points to Moran for the “bypassing” line.
So it goes: we face another year with a system stuck in the 20th Century, a system that nearly told New Kent County residents to go to Powhatan for their health care.
The post COPN Reform stalls; Rent-seekers win, for now appeared first on Bearing Drift.
