Mississippi legislators missed the chance to repeal the CON legal guidelines and forestall the hazards they trigger for Mississippians.

By any measure, America is experiencing a substance use disaster. In 2021, deaths from overdoses reached an estimated 107,622 individuals throughout the US, with roughly one other 140,000 deaths resulting from extreme alcohol use. Sadly, Mississippi has not been spared from this epidemic. In 2021 alone, 491 individuals died from opioid overdoses, and over 2,500 individuals required Narcan to be revived after an overdose.

Quite a few components contribute to an individual’s substance abuse, and it may be very troublesome for them to appreciate or be satisfied by their family members that they want skilled assist to get sober and get their life again on monitor. Nonetheless, because the substance use disaster continues to worsen, amenities that present therapy are hamstrung by antiquated rules that stop them from scaling up their skill to take care of sufferers in want.

In practically each business or sector of the economic system, when there may be an elevated demand for a enterprise’s items or companies the related corporations will merely scale, both by increasing their present operations or constructing new areas altogether. Nonetheless, because of Mississippi’s Certificates of Want legal guidelines, the well being care business is prevented from scaling up as wanted.

And when that occurs, it’s sufferers — the very individuals these legal guidelines have been supposed to assist — who endure.

Our state’s CON regulation requires that amenities that present rehabilitation care should obtain regulatory permission to broaden or set up new areas and even simply so as to add extra beds at inpatient amenities. This course of takes months and might value as much as $25,000.

Moreover, this course of consists of a provision to permit “affected individuals” to request a public listening to to argue towards granting the Certificates of Want. “Affected individuals” consists of well being care organizations that already present an analogous service or have indicated to the state that it plans to supply comparable companies sooner or later.

This provision is ostensibly to make sure that there may be enough care and to maintain medical prices down, however, in actuality, it offers a manner for competing well being care suppliers to attempt to restrict their competitors. We might suppose it odd if McDonalds needed to safe permission from Burger King to open a brand new location, but for some motive that is thought-about a good suggestion on the subject of well being care.

The information is overwhelmingly clear that regardless of no matter good intentions lie behind these CON legal guidelines, they merely serve to scale back entry to care and make it costlier. A examine by the College of Washington’s Faculty of Public Well being and Neighborhood Medication in contrast and contrasted leads to states with and with out CON legal guidelines and located that they’re “not an efficient mechanism for controlling total well being care spending” and that that they had in some instances really restricted the availability of care. Earlier than their whole repeal in Pennsylvania, CON legal guidelines had restricted the availability of alcohol and chemical dependency beds.

Current reviews have confirmed these outcomes. A multitude of analysis has discovered that states with CON legal guidelines have increased prices and fewer entry to therapy, beds, and medical tools.

Substance use is a disaster, and there’s no time to waste in months of bureaucratic paper shuffling to enhance entry to therapy.

Sadly, Mississippi legislators missed the chance to repeal the CON legal guidelines which can be stopping Mississippians who’re fighting substance use from having the ability to entry the care that they want. Home Invoice 10 was launched in the beginning of this legislative session and would have amended the related legal guidelines to take away chemical dependency companies and amenities from CON rules. It failed in committee by vote final week.

Passing Home Invoice 10 would have ensured extra entry to care, decrease costs, and shorter wait occasions for individuals fighting substance use by permitting Mississippi well being care amenities to broaden their skill to deal with them with out months of bureaucratic hoop leaping that in the long run solely results in increased prices and worse well being outcomes.

This invoice would have been a win-win-win that may have saved well being care suppliers months of bureaucratic headache, allowed individuals with a substance abuse drawback to entry high quality care at decrease costs, and saved taxpayers cash by decreasing the damaging penalties that stem from untreated substance abuse.

People for Prosperity Mississippi will proceed to teach the general public in regards to the risks of Certificates of Want legal guidelines and encourage legislators to go H.B. 10 subsequent yr to make sure that Mississippians in disaster can entry the care they want.