TN House advances bill to end Ballad Health COPA

The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill Monday that proponents believe is the first half of promoting more competition with Ballad Health. The bill would terminate the state’s Certificate of Public Advantage (COPA) between the state of Tennessee and Ballad Health by 2028. It would also remove the Tennessee Department of Health’s oversight of Ballad while still retaining pricing restrictions to be supervised by the Attorney General. Last week, the Federal Trade Commission labeled the bill as a potential “risk to patients.” The FTC said that “Repealing a COPA law or allowing a specific COPA to expire in the absence of competing healthcare systems enables a monopolist to exercise substantial market power unconstrained by state regulatory oversight or antitrust enforcement against merger-related harms.” Legislation that would exempt any acute care hospitals from being required to obtain a certificate of need in order to establish a facility which removes the regulatory barriers for groups interested in providing healthcare in the state, has not yet been adopted.