Certificate-of-Need Laws, Evil Trolls, and the Minneapolis Star Tribune
We do our best to describe antitrust and other legal issues as straightforwardly as possible here. We tend to speak directly and avoid the guarded language that you often see from lawyers elsewhere (a little secret: most big-firm attorneys are afraid of getting in trouble in one way or another).
So, in case there was any doubt, I’ll tell you what I really think of certificate-of-need laws. These are laws, still on the books in many states, that actually require a new healthcare provider that wants to move into a market to get permission from the state to do so (a certificate of need). And, even more bizarre, the existing competitors—who certainly don’t want any more competition—often have a say or a role in whether the new provider receives a certificate of need, which can sometimes take months or years to obtain, if at all.