Competitor’s Veto: State Certificate of need Laws Violate State Prohibitions on Monopolies

According to the executive summary, “CON laws, after all, violate a host of constitutional provisions, including the anti-monopoly clauses found in several state constitutions. Enabling existing providers to use the law to bar others from entering an industry or offering a service is the very definition of a government-created monopoly. Few state courts have so far directly addressed whether CON laws violate state anti-monopoly clauses, but several have noted that they are inherently anticompetitive. This paper discusses how CON laws are designed to function in precisely the way prohibited by state constitutions.”