Moderated Re: Contact the Governor!
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I'm kind of surprised that isn't a bigger story too.?Which hospitals are turning people away and letting them die, Judith?? A "root cause" here is lack of sufficient capacity, i.e. why aren't there more treatment facilities available? The answer may have to do with regulations like "certificate of need laws", which in many states limit competition by requiring proposed new health care facilities to get the approval of existing facilties before opening. (Yes, this regulation actually is as dumb as it sounds!)... "Over the past 50 years, most states enacted (and many still retain)
Certificate of Need (CON) laws, whose stated purpose is to control
medical costs by limiting the supply of services and facilities to only
what is ¡°needed,¡± as determined by a state board or agency. Simply put,
CON laws make it illegal for healthcare providers to offer services to
patients, or to purchase certain medical equipment, without first
getting permission from those providers already operating in the market.
That permission is often denied¡ªnot because of any threat to public
health, but solely to prevent legitimate economic competition. Soon after the federal government encouraged states to adopt such laws in the 1970s, it became clear that this cost control experiment was a failure. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, and several academic studies found that by eliminating competition, CON laws actually drove up costs, lowered quality, and limited the availability of needed services. As the American Medical Association succinctly put it: ¡°CON laws represent a failed public policy.¡± Yet 38 states still have CON laws on their books, and continue to require government approval before building or expanding a healthcare facility or service¡ªapproval that can hinge on whether existing hospitals are willing to allow others to enter the market to compete against them.1 This is primarily because existing providers benefit handsomely from CON laws, which allow them to block would-be competitors." ¨C From ((( starchild ))) On Jan 5, 2021, at 4:29 PM, Judith Gottesman wrote: CA hospitals are telling ambulances to let people die and don¡¯t bring them in in the United States of America. Why isn¡¯t this the main news? |
Starchild