AFP-MI: Certificate of Need Changes Would Be Tiny Step in the Right Direction

Jun 16, 2022 by AFP

Grassroots Group encouraged house panel to support senate bills on psychiatric beds, air ambulances

Lansing, Michigan—The advocacy group Americans for Prosperity-Michigan testified in support of three senate bills that will alter Michigan’s certificate of need program this morning during a hearing of the house health policy committee.

Together, Senate Bills 181, 182, and 183 would remove certificate of need requirements on special psychiatric beds and air ambulances, increase the threshold for capital expenditures that require a certificate of need, and add two additional members to the 11-person appointed commission that oversees the program.

AFP-MI policy director Diana Rademacher had this to say:

“Michigan was one of the first states to implement certificate of need and we may soon be one of the last to repeal it. In the meantime, our patients — our friends and neighbors who need care — and our health care providers suffer.

“Scholars on both sides of the aisle agree that certificate of need should be fully repealed, and that agreement doesn’t end with the ivory tower or with advocacy groups like ours. Since 2007 even the federal trade commission and department of justice have been going state-to-state encouraging policy makers to do away with bureaucratic permission slips for medical facilities and services because it suppresses competition, prevents innovation, drives up costs, and hurts patients.

“These bills won’t fully repeal Michigan’s certificate of need, but they are a tiny step in the right direction and it’s a tiny step worth taking.”

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