WHB/4/5
Sponsored by James Kirkpatrick, Ysabella Goggans, Mahdi Al Rubaye of John Overton High School
This legislation was filed in the Health category
Presented as part of the YIG Volunteer 2024 conference
| 1 | BE IT ENACTED BY THE TENNESSEE YMCA YOUTH IN GOVERNMENT |
| 2 | |
| 3 | Section 1) Terms in this act will be defined as follows: |
| 4 | (A) Health facilities - Institutions, places, and agencies that provide healthcare services such as |
| 5 | hospitals, nursing homes, ambulatory surgical treatment centers, intellectual Disability |
| 6 | Institutional Habilitation Facilities, home care organizations, outpatient diagnostic centers, |
| 7 | rehabilitation facilities, residential hospices, and nonresidential substitution-based treatment |
| 8 | center for opiate addiction. |
| 9 | (B) Health services - A public service that is meant to provide medical care. |
| 10 | (C) Certificate of Need (CON) - A permit that is used for establishing or modifying a healthcare |
| 11 | institution, facility, or service at a designated location. |
| 12 | (D) Hospital occupancy rate - The calculation used to show the actual utilization of an inpatient |
| 13 | healthcare facility for a given amount of time. |
| 14 | (E) Trust - a business structure that doesn’t have an owner or owners in a traditional sense. |
| 15 | (F) Healthcare - seeking improvement of health by preventing, diagnosing, treating, or curing a |
| 16 | disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments. |
| 17 | (G) Litigation - the process of resolving disputes by filing or answering a complaint through the |
| 18 | public court system. |
| 19 | (H) Competition - The striving for market share between healthcare providers. |
| 20 | (I) In 2022, Tennessee had a population of 6,923,772, with 1,472,229 people living in non-metro |
| 21 | areas, 21% of the population is based in rural areas. |
| 22 | (J) In 2022, a study found that the CON has resulted in Tennessee having 63 fewer hospitals, with |
| 23 | 25 that could have been located in rural Areas. |
| 24 | (K) A study found that Since April 2000, over 1.5 billion dollars worth of healthcare investment has |
| 25 | been denied as a result of CON. |
| 26 | (L) A study found that since 2010, 15 hospitals have permanently closed around the state, making |
| 27 | Tennessee the second highest in permanent hospital closures. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | Section 2) The Certificate of Need provisions fail to meet its goals of reducing healthcare costs |
| 30 | and distributing healthcare resources through Tennessee's districts. Concerned that |
| 31 | 22 counties in Tennessee have no general hospitals and 58 counties have only one. Only four |
| 32 | counties in Tennessee have more than five general hospitals. |
| 33 | |
| 34 | Section 3) A scarcity of healthcare resources leads to increased prices. |
| 35 | |
| 36 | Section 4) The Certificate of Need destroys investment in the healthcare industry and shuts down |
| 37 | competition by enforcing a necessity requirement for healthcare facilities. As a result of creating |
| 38 | restrictions based on need, large healthcare providers can dominate the healthcare industry by |
| 39 | |
| 40 | Section 5) Effective immediately, this bill will remove the Certificate of Need for Health Services |
| 41 | and Facilities. |
| 42 | |
| 43 | Section 6) The construction of healthcare facilities cannot be determined based on need. |
| 44 | |
| 45 | Section 7) There shall be no hospital occupancy rate required for the expansion of a healthcare |
| 46 | facility |
| 47 | |
| 48 | Section 8) No healthcare provider shall be able to prevent the construction of other healthcare |
| 49 | facilities. |
| 50 | |
| 51 | Section 9) The standards for that course will be set by the Division of Health Planning, the Health |
| 52 | Services and Development Agency, and the Health Facilities Commission. |
| 53 | |
| 54 | |
| 55 | Section 10) Because this bill eliminates the Certificate of Need, there will be no costs to the state |
| 56 | government. |
| 57 | |
| 58 | Section 11) All legislation in conflict with this bill are hereby repealed. |
| 59 | |
| 60 | Section 12) This act shall take effect October 1, 2024, the public welfare requiring it. |
| 61 |