Show Me Better (Part 2): Certificate Of Need And Access To Care
One of the benefits of free markets is their ability to match buyers with sellers. Potential customers assess the supply of goods and services, the parties agree to the prices, and, generally speaking, purchases are efficient – delivering comparable value to both parties.
Unfortunately, Missouri’s certificate of need (CON) program may be erecting barriers to the market functioning efficiently when matching care providers and care consumers. A recent working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research examined how hospital entry deregulation in Pennsylvania affected the market for cardiac revascularization. Because Pennsylvania eliminated its CON program in 1996, economists were able to compare clinical outcomes before and after the program’s repeal — the ideal conditions by which to conduct an experiment. The researchers found that “free-entry improves the match between underlying medical risk and treatment intensity” and “improved access to care.”
Another study conducted in the same state, on the same topic, found that the post-deregulatory market did a better job at matching the appropriate procedure to the appropriate risk level. After deregulation, better doctors also saw an influx in demand for their services.
Removing the CON program in Pennsylvania empowered patients to attain better care from better doctors. Certainly, a market uninhibited by cumbersome regulations does a better job at matching the right patient to the right procedure, performed by a better doctor, than a nine-member regulatory board. Missouri could follow Pennsylvania’s lead in doing away with the micromanagement and creating a system conducive to competition and innovation.
