Government intervention has led to an increased mortality rate...

View this email in your browser ([link removed])
[link removed]
Hello John,

Government intervention has led to an increased mortality rate.

[link removed] the key finding of a new study ([link removed]) that National Center Senior Fellow Bonner Cohen Ph.D. ([link removed]) profiles in an article ([link removed]) published by the Heartland Daily News. Put simply, bureaucrats were not ready for the COVID-19 pandemic. And those states that have developed workarounds to these laws are now experiencing an increased mortality among sick residents.

Certificate of Need ([link removed]) (CON) laws exist in 36 states and the District of Columbia. Because they give government bureaucrats the ability to control spending in certain health care institutions, Bonner notes that these laws “artificially restrict the expansion of medical facilities, equipment (including hospital beds) and services.” This power comes from a 1974 law – the “National Health Planning and Resources Development Act” – designed to ensure an equitable balance of resources and therefore improve access for the poor.

But the study, conducted by university economists for the research platform SSRN, found that “these laws were not designed to prepare for health care demand surges such as what we have seen with the recent pandemic.”
[link removed]

Bonner explains that the study – “Certificate-of-Need Laws and Healthcare Utilization During COVID-19 Pandemic ([link removed]) ” – found that “CON laws limit access to beds, respirators, ambulatory services, and CT/MRI imaging – resources crucial to the care of COVID and non-COVID patients,” and that it “sheds light on how scarce resources are distributed during a time of increased demand by patients” due to CON constraints.

In a further description of the study’s findings, Bonner writes:

The study found that when comparing states that have reformed their CON laws with states that have not, mortality in states with a high hospital or ICU bed utilization for non-COVID related illnesses was “substantial and significant.”…

Additionally, the researchers found that, in states with high ICU bed utilization that subsequently reformed their CON laws in order to increase acquisitions of medical equipment, 11 lives per 100,000 residents were saved weekly from COVID.

One of the researchers, Sriparna Ghosh of the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash, said that this study shows how “[i]nefficient and burdensome regulations are costing American lives.” By reforming or repealing CON laws altogether, “we can allow providers to stockpile crucial equipment they need for unexpected surges in demand for health care, minimizing additional lives lost through stressed markets and inefficient purchasing systems that require government permission to proceed.”

Click here ([link removed]) to read all of Bonner’s article – “Certificate of Need Laws Kill People, Study Finds” – at the Heartland Institute’s Health Care News website.
READ ON OUR WEBSITE ([link removed])
[link removed] Share ([link removed])
[link removed] https%3A%2F%2Fnationalcenter.org%2Fncppr%2F2020%2F11%2F20%2Fcovid-19-exposes-failing-medical-regulation%2F Tweet ([link removed] https%3A%2F%2Fnationalcenter.org%2Fncppr%2F2020%2F11%2F20%2Fcovid-19-exposes-failing-medical-regulation%2F)
[link removed] Forward ([link removed])
Help support The National Center
A gift to The National Center will be used to fund critically-important programs not offered by any other group, including:
* The Free Enterprise Project (FEP), the liberty movement’s only full-service shareholder and activism group that’s effective in pushing corporate America to the right;
* Project 21, the liberty movement’s only public relations agency for black conservatives and libertarians that has already created over 40,000 media opportunities;
* The Environment and Enterprise Institute (EEI), which counters misinformation being spread by the environmental left.

DONATE NOW ([link removed])

The National Center for Public Policy Research is a communications and research foundation supportive of a strong national defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions to today’s public policy problems. We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.
READ MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CENTER ([link removed])

============================================================
CONNECT WITH US
** Twitter ([link removed])
** Facebook ([link removed])
** YouTube ([link removed])
** Website ([link removed])
Copyright © 2020 The National Center for Public Policy Research, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website.

Our mailing address is:
The National Center for Public Policy Research
20 F Street NW
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20001
USA
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
.