Like many states, Nebraska has a nursing home shortage. Like most states, it also has protectionist regulations that prevent everyone from rectifying the problem. A completed facility with immediate and willing buyers, Butte Senior Living will not only sit in the air, but also prevent other nursing homes from opening unless the law changes.
In jurisdictions with anti-competitive certificates of needs (CON) laws, healthcare companies wanting to open new facilities or spend key capital must convince them that they need the regulatory commission (and in most states, their own future competitors) in the area. The time, money and court battles required can sometimes be made to give up before a licensed, capable practitioner begins. As expected, these rules consistently cause healthcare rarity and rising prices, but Nebraska and 37 other states still enforce them at the request of current providers who want to maintain their oligolies.
A promising start
What has Nebraska, a state that appears to boast a relatively free market, turned to this healthcare binding? At first glance, it seems like a good place to avoid the scammer drama. This application requires a $1,000 fee and a 60-day wait for decisions that are much less than in many other regions. Also, unlike most states, they do not allow direct interference from competitors during their initial request hearing.
The rules are also less forbidden than in many locations, restricting only nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. However, the current situation in Butte Senior Living shows too well why the state should ultimately abolish the remaining traces of its law.
Butte's mud
Ideally, attempts to plan spending often result in individual fraud multiplying and absurdly complicated. Even the term bed is problematic.
The state's complex law requires that at least 90% of long-term care beds be met before new facilities are built or beds are added. But by law, a bed really refers to the capacity of the bed.
When the owners of Butte Senior Living closed the centre, the town itself wanted to buy it and reopen. However, Nebraska care centers are currently located at less than 90% capacity statewide, so there is a pause in place to add beds/capacity. Moratoriums also apply to deserts of care, such as Butte, where there are no facilities nearby.
The town is not trying to add physical beds to the existing Butte senior living building, but to reopen it, it will have to pay both the owner's asking price and the required bed capacity from another nursing home that can and can sell it. And the town can't afford to pay both.
Without the gravity of the situation, twisted logic may be comical. A fully functional care facility is empty, out of reach of ready residents and buyers, with only strange laws in between. And while some legislators are trying to change that, lobbyists are persuading existing long-term care businesses to continue protecting them from increasing competition. When Senator Glenn Meyer was asked what he would say to upset Butte residents, he had an incredible answer.
“strict?”
