Jeb Bradley’s Health Care CON board bill is on the State Senate to-do list today. It sounds like your average, run-of-the-mill regulatory business as usual, which is usually bad enough. This particular bit of regulatory “business as usual” is much worse.
It will create health-care fiefdoms around the major players (Hospitals) in the state, dividing the territory like a crime family, and forcing other players to bow to the regulatory gods of Bradley Care or get out.
SB 481 will result in,
- 25 mile radius monopolies for the 13 critical access hospitals across the state, which effectively cuts off roughly 70% of the state from
development of health care facilities. - A ban on any health care facility that doesn’t take Medicaid or Medicare (meant to target Cancer Treatment Centers of America from coming to NH)
- A requirement that any new hospital have an emergency department (naturally all specialty hospitals already here are grandfathered)
It is the expansion of Bradley-Care and a sop to the big players. It will limit or prevent competition which will reduce access and prevent you from having more choices while keeping prices high by hamstringing those who dare to enter the marketplace anyway. It is the state defining the terms by which you are able to obtain care in favor of a privileged few.
Sponsors: Sen. Bradley, Dist 3; Sen. Watters, Dist 4; Sen. Woodburn, Dist 1; Sen. Fuller Clark, Dist 21; Sen. Pierce, Dist 5; Sen. Forrester, Dist 2; Sen. Kelly, Dist 10; Sen. Feltes, Dist 15; Sen. Boutin, Dist 16; Sen. Lasky, Dist 13; Sen. Soucy, Dist 18; Rep. Kurk, Hills. 2; Rep. Rosenwald, Hills. 30; Rep. Kotowski, Merr. 24; Rep. Sherman, Rock. 24.
