Connecticut's Certificate of Need Law - Needed Now More Than Ever
| Pages | 239 |
| Publication year | 2021 |
70 CBJ 239. Connecticut's Certificate of Need Law - Needed Now More Than Ever
In the October, 1995 Connecticut Barjournal (CBJ), Professor W. John Thomas of Quinnipiac College School of Law published a thoughtful and provocative article criticizing Connecticut's retention of its Certificate of Need (CON ) program (Connecticut's Certificate of Need Statute: Time for Reevalutation ' 69 CBJ 405 (1995). In this article, Professor Thomas skillfully laid out some of the legislative history surrounding Connecticut's CON statute and the national context in which CON became a federal policy in the 1970's, only later to be abandoned by Congress in 1987. (fn1)
After reviewing some data concerning CON's operation in Connecticut, Professor Thomas concludes that not only is a "reevaluation" needed of Connecticut's Certificate of Need statute but rather a full scale abandonment is warranted of this program which he characterizes as "at best completely ineffective", and "at worst damaging". (fn2) The conclusion of Professor Thomas' article would effectively expose Connecticut's 33 hospitals, 360 some odd nursing homes and countless other health care institutions including ambulatory surgery centers, psychiatric treatment centers and rehabilitation facilities to the full brunt of the marketplace, which he believes would be more effective in restraining health care costs than the present system of screening capital expenditures by the Connecticut Office of Health Care Access (OHCA) and the Connecticut Department of Social Services (DSS). (fn3) To support that view, Professor Thomas selectively cited certain statistics which show a relatively low percentage of CON applications being rejected by OHCA and selective comments from a 1993 study by the Connecticut General Assembly's Program Review and Investigation Committee and other observers
who question the effectiveness of the CON system in keeping down the costs of health care. (fn4)
Finally, Professor Thomas questions whether access to health care in poor areas of the state has really occurred as a result of the Certificate of Need law. (fn5) He is correct in noting that access to health care has consistently been touted as one of the public policy grounds cited in support of such programs over their 23 year history. However, as this article will argue, his conclusion on this point is not supported by actual experience.
The relevance of Professor Thomas' article in the swiftly...
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