NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A new bill in the Tennessee General Assembly takes aim at Ballad Health and seeks to repeal the law that allowed the hospital organization to form.
The bill, HB 2600, proposed by Rep. Gloria Johnson (D - Knoxville), calls Ballad's Certificate of Public Advantage a “failed experiment" and said the law granting it effectively allowed monopolies to form in East Tennessee.
The law waived anti-trust law and allowed Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System to merge in 2018 and form Ballad Health. Through the legislation, businesses can effectively ask for approval from the Tennessee Department of Health to merge two or more hospitals.
That approval, called a "Certificate of Public Advantage," gives immunity from state action on antitrust laws. Lawmakers said the intent of allowing COPAs to be issued was to help struggling rural hospitals from going out of business, but Rep. Johnson said care has only declined.
“I was sitting in a restaurant near Vanderbilt, and a couple came up to me and told me they were here at Vanderbilt because they couldn't count on the care at Ballad,” Johnson said.
She said she frequently gets calls from the region about Ballad.
“Why do you think that is? It seems odd that they would be calling a representative for Knoxville,” News 5’s Caleb Perhne asked Johnson.
“You know, a lot of people do call my office because they don't get a response from their representative, and they know I'm not afraid to go after bullies,” she said.
Ballad Health representatives declined an interview request for this story, but in a lengthy statement said many of Johnson's claims are inaccurate. Ballad said the COPA has kept hospitals from closing and allowed them to expand services. The statement also said Ballad hospitals are recognized as among the best in the nation.
But Johnson said the key to saving rural hospitals is expanding Medicaid, not allowing monopolies.
“It can happen anywhere if we don't get rid of this legislation,” Johnson said. “We don't want it to happen in Jackson, Tennessee. We don't want it to happen anywhere else. We don't want to see people's hospitals downgraded, lose services, all of those things.”
A full statement from Ballad Health is available below.
"The bill sponsors live in urban communities elsewhere in Tennessee, so we can understand why they may not be sensitive about access to healthcare for rural Tennesseans. The reality is that Tennessee's rural communities have had the second-highest number of hospital closures in America. Today, due to the wisdom of the state legislature, every community in Northeast Tennessee that had a hospital before the Certificate of Public Advantage (COPA) was created, still has one, and we have been able to expand services, such as new pediatric emergency departments, new pediatric specialist physicians, addiction care programs for pregnant women, new dental residency programs and provide care for thousands of uninsured Tennesseans. This bill, if passed, would expose our hospitals to closures, which were occurring before the creation of Ballad Health, and it would sacrifice these important new services created due to the COPA.
The bill makes inaccurate statements the legislature cannot rely upon. For instance, Ballad Health has a more generous charity care policy providing more free care to low-income Tennesseans than hospitals in the districts of the authors of the bill; an increase in access that would not have happened if Ballad Health had not been created. Further, the bill ignores that Ballad Health is scored on quality of care measures by the States. The majority of Ballad Health's quality of care measures scored by the states are currently performing better than 90 percent of hospitals in America.
We are proud that U.S. News & World Report ranks Holston Valley Medical Center as the ninth-best hospital in Tennessee, and that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of America cite several Ballad Health hospitals as among the best in the nation for several specialties, including obstetrics, orthopedics and cardiology."