While other states are leaving their Certificate of Need (CON) requirements behind, Washington keeps inflicting its health system with an outdated policy that the federal government gave up long ago. 

A CON requirement is a costly, time-consuming permission slip from the government needed to start or expand health care services. It is also influenced by players in the current health care market. (Seriously. Imagine asking McDonald’s if it was OK to open another burger restaurant nearby.) 

The state’s statutorily declared purpose for CON law is to “promote, maintain, and assure the health of all citizens in Washington while controlling increases in health care costs and recognizing prevention as a priority.” But states with certificate of need (CON) laws have higher health care costs and fewer medical services per capita. CON requirements are not doing what they were created decades ago to do, which is why it should be easy to let them go. It’s apparently not. 

House Bill 2128 would create a task force to look at the CON program, and Senate Bill 5920 would continue to temporarily remove CON from psychiatric hospitals. They are good bills moving along with lawmaker support in the Legislature. Progress, yes. What would be better, however, is if our state lawmakers used an overwhelming body of evidence that shows CON a policy failure and simply got rid of the state’s requirements. 

Congress repealed its CON law decades ago, as have a dozen states since. They have not witnessed the dangers predicted by those who benefit from the CON process. CON requirements deprive patients of access to health care and restrict normal competition that can help with health care cost containment.

Washington Policy Center has been concerned about this great CON harming the state’s health care system for years. Hopefully, upon review of a state-funded task force’s findings, enough lawmakers in the Legislature will share the concern. It’s too bad that this might only happen after a lot of taxpayer dollars are spent needlessly. They could have learned from findings that already exist for free.