With the ever-increasing costs of healthcare, Tennesseans are looking for innovative solutions to increase access, improve outcomes, and lower costs. While much focus on healthcare is at the federal level, many things can be done right here in our home state. Beacon continues to work with state lawmakers to be incubators of freer market healthcare options for Tennesseans that expand quality and access to patients across the socio-economic spectrum. For example, we will continue our call for the full repeal of certificate-of-need laws. These laws restrict providers from offering new services and have denied a total of $733 million in economic investments in our communities since 2000.
While Tennessee policymakers have recently advanced reforms that are already expanding access to care, more needs to be done. To build on this progress to improve healthcare access, Beacon proposes:
- Full repeal of the remaining certificate-of-need laws
- Adoption of Right to Try 2.0-Individualized Treatment to allow potentially life-saving treatments for terminally ill patients
- Increasing patients’ access to healthcare by allowing non-physician providers to serve patients within their scope of education
