The Obama administration told South Carolina’s Republican Gov. Nikki Haley on Monday that it supports a healthcare policy reform initiative she has pushed.
The Justice Department Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission told Haley it agrees with her calls to deregulate the state’s healthcare licensing scheme.
“South Carolina lawmakers have the opportunity to help health care consumers in the state,” Antitrust Division chief Bill Baer said. “[Certificate of need] laws raise the cost of investment in new health care services and can shield incumbents from competition that would benefit consumers and lower costs.”
The policy declaration came the day before Haley is scheduled to deliver a response to the President’s State of the Union Address—a speaking gig opposition parties typically give to policymakers with presidential aspirations of their own.
It also runs counter to a message Haley has attempted to convey to voters since her 2011 gubernatorial victory—that the Obama administration has been uninterested in working with conservative state governments; particularly on matters related to healthcare.
“I had pledged, as governor, to lead a coalition of governors to fight Obamacare and allow the states to offer real solutions to our health-care crisis,” she said in her 2012 book, Can’t Is Not an Option.
“South Carolina does not want, and cannot afford, the President’s health care plan. Not now, and not ever,” she said during her State of the State address that same year. “To that end, we will not pursue the type of government-run health exchanges being forced on us by Washington.”
Haley is one of sixteen Republican governors to have opted-out of the Medicaid expansion in the Affordable Care Act; a move that has deprived low income South Carolinians of access to health insurance.
Last year, after a meeting between President Obama and state governors, Haley said the administration is similarly unwilling to work with Republican state executives on a range of issues.
“This is now my fifth year, going and meeting with the president, and I think I’m frustrated. I continue to be frustrated,” she said, according to The Daily Caller, after being asked about the now-rejected Keystone Pipeline. “And the reason is I think he was genuine in saying that we want to work with the governors, the governors are the ones that get things done, they’re the ones that really want to move the ball. But every time we try and move the ball with him, he says no.”
According to the Associated Press, Haley attempted in 2013 to unilaterally scrap South Carolina’s certificate of need framework by vetoing the approval of its $2 million in funding. Certificate of need laws force healthcare facility operators and market entrants to apply for permission to expand and establish infrastructure.
“The program was resurrected a year later when, after a lawsuit from hospitals, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled it couldn’t be eliminated unless lawmakers directly voted to kill it,” the AP said Monday.
Haley first asked the administration in November 2015 to say whether it would support a proposal in the state legislature to eventually repeal certificate of need laws.
One Democratic FTC commissioner believes that this backing has come too soon.
“The FTC should advise South Carolina policy makers based on our area of expertise—competition—and not overstep our collective knowledge. Health care policy makers at the state level are faced with difficult issues separate and apart from the strong benefits competition brings to health care markets,” Julie Brill wrote in her dissent.”
“In this context, it is important to understand that competition will not move resources from those that can afford health care to those that cannot,” she added. Brill also claimed those backing deregulation haven’t proven certificate of need laws run counter to consumers’ interests.
The comment was approved in a 3-1 vote. Three Democrats and a Republican sit on the FTC.
