House committee passes bill deregulating new hospitals

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) – A Florida House committee on Wednesday passed a bill strongly supported by Gov. Rick Scott that would do away with what he calls the unnecessary red tape before new hospitals can be built. But the measure is unlikely to pass in the Senate.

A so-called certificate of need that is currently required grants state approval before a hospital is built, replaced or takes on a specialty service such as organ transplants. The bill would remove that requirement.

Supporters said the proposal would increase competition and therefore lower costs and improve access. But critics, including the Florida Hospital Association, said it would allow new providers to cherry pick patients.

“Competition helps reduce costs and increase patient quality of care – plain and simple,” said a statement from the governor.

Scott, who used to run a chain of for-profit hospitals, said Texas does not require this type of regulation and only about 1 percent of hospitals there have readmission rates lower than the national rate. That compares to Florida, where almost 18 percent of hospitals have readmission rates worse than the national average.

The governor also tasked his hospital commission to look into similar deregulations as he has become increasingly adversarial toward public hospitals, some of which he has sought to show are reaping large profits and don’t need as many tax dollars. That stance comes as Scott is faced with a budget hole over the likely loss of federal funds that help hospitals who treat low-income and Medicaid patients.

State Rep. Janet Cruz warned that it would allow new for-profit hospitals to move in near established hospitals by building small emergency rooms and transferring all the complex cases to the larger hospitals. She added that would mean new hospitals would get more paying patients and the public hospitals would be stuck with sicker low-income patients.

“I feel like the big hospitals that serve my poor communities in my hometown are under attack … we’re going after this pot of money and forgetting about the folks that are uninsured and poor,” said Cruz, D-Tampa.

Several other Democrats complained that the bill didn’t go through the full committee process and it was too important of an issue to rush through a special session that is set to end June 20.

The Florida Hospital Association testified that the regulation improves quality of care, access to care and controls costs. But critics argued it does the opposite.

Lane Smith, a spokesman for Jacksonville’s Mayo Clinic, said it took five years and $1 million in legal costs to get approval for a liver transplant program.

“We don’t think it’s a legitimate way to ensure quality in service,” Smith said.

The House Health and Human Services Committee passed the bill Wednesday largely along party lines, along with health care bills that would allow nurse practitioners and physician assistants to prescribe controlled substances and another that would allow outpatient recovery centers to keep patients for multiple nights.

A Senate committee also discussed the proposal Wednesday, but it’s unclear if it would advance to the floor. Senate President Andy Gardiner said that decision was up to the committee chairs.

At the Senate hearing, Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Elizabeth Dudek said “I have not seen that certificate of need has benefited or hurt the ability to access care.”