With Chevron gone, states must finish the job on judicial deference
Across the country, a quiet but important shift is underway in how courts review administrative agency decisions. Nineteen states have ended judicial deference to administrative agencies (including Kansas just this week), either through legislation or state court decisions. More are poised to follow. Bills are currently pending in states like Alaba ...
CON Quarterly : Happy New Year
Welcome to the first CON Quarterly in 2026— Happy New Year, Readers. As a reminder, in markets where the government requires a certificate of need or CON, those who wish to offer a new service or expand an existing service must first prove to a regulator that the service is needed. As the name suggests, the regulator's primary task is toâ ...
The Hill : The Rural Transformation Program is helping liberate health care markets in the states
In acknowledging the struggles faced by rural hospitals, Congress recently created the Rural Healthcare Transformation Program. The program aims to increase access to health care in the areas that need it most and create the right incentives to lower the rates of chronic disease. The Rural Healthcare Transformation Program will help struggling rura ...
Maine’s certificate need laws keep healthcare costs high
According to the Maine Bureau of Insurance, Mainers can expect to see increases of as much as 25% in health insurance rates beginning in 2026. While Maine already has some of the highest health insurance costs in the country, insurance providers claim the rising cost of health care is forcing their hand. To combat the anticipated rise in insuranc ...
CON Quarterly : New papers and shared resources
Welcome to the Second Edition of the CON Quarterly. As a reminder, in markets where the government requires a certificate of need or CON, those who wish to offer a new service or expand an existing service must first prove to a regulator that the service is needed. As the name suggests, the regulator's primary task is to determine if the service i ...
Vermont just took a step toward better healthcare—other states should follow
Access to healthcare is a nationwide problem. Lack of access might be attributed to too few facilities, too few providers, or unaffordable prices. States are finally waking up and acknowledging that decades-old policies may be exacerbating these problems. One of these bad policies is known as certificate of need (CON) laws. CON laws function lik ...
Emergency Rooms Are Overwhelmed—Bureaucracy Is to BlameÂ
Emergency rooms across the country are overcrowded, forcing patients suffering from severe illnesses to wait hours for treatment. Worse, when there are sudden increases in illness—say from an influenza outbreak—hospitals are unable to address the problem. That is because many state governments have adopted Certificate of Need (CON) laws that pr ...
Welcome to CON Quarterly
Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Certificate of Need Newsletter. Not many people know about CON laws. And even fewer care about them. So, thanks for caring! Since you are reading this, you probably know something about CON laws. If not, here is the TL/DR version: In markets where the government requires a CON, those who wish to offer a ne ...
Nurse practitioners play a critical role in healthcare. States should get out of their way.
As a nurse in rural Colorado after World War II, Loretta Ford described herself as a lone ranger. "Whatever went on in health, I was called," she said. "I took care of it." Ms. Ford, who died in January at the age of 104, co-founded America's first nurse practitioner program. She believed that nurses were more than doctors' helpers: They were de ...