Andy Miller and Sam Whitehead
JACKSON, Ga. — Ed Whitehouse stood alongside a state freeway in rural Butts County, Georgia, and surveyed acres of rolling fields and forests close to Interstate 75. Instead of farmland and timber, he envisioned a hospital.
Whitehouse, a guide for a neighborhood well being care firm that desires to construct a hospital there with at the least 150 beds, stated the group might break floor inside a yr. The concept, he stated, is to offer medical providers past these presently offered by Wellstar Sylvan Grove Medical Center, an growing old, nonprofit “critical access” hospital that provides restricted providers, together with emergency care, rehabilitation, wound care, and imaging.
But it took a brand new legislation, pushed by the state’s highly effective Republican lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, to clear the way in which for building. The land is partly owned by his father, Bill Jones, a profitable businessman whose curiosity in growing a hospital in his residence county drew consideration from state Democrats and the hospital business.
The state of affairs has been portrayed as “this billionaire entrepreneur, Bill Jones, exploiting the legal system through his son, imposing his will on people and trying to cash in,” Whitehouse stated. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Woven via the drama in Butts County are arcane however consequential guidelines that require state approval for hospital building and growth. The guidelines, used practically nationwide till the Nineteen Eighties, require potential builders to use for permission for brand new tasks. State officers consider want based mostly on standards equivalent to inhabitants development and current hospital capability.
This yr, Georgia lawmakers joined a number of different states in concentrating on these “certificate of need,” or CON, rules for dramatic change. Some states have exempted sure medical suppliers from the method; others have been extra dramatic, together with South Carolina, which is sunsetting most of its rules.
Attempts to pave the way in which for a brand new hospital in Butts County present how debate over certificates of want legal guidelines can intensify as legislatures attempt to reconcile the usually conflicting priorities of politicians, the well being care business, and communities.
The legal guidelines have been criticized for limiting competitors, and a few well being care analysts, like Matthew Mitchell, a senior analysis fellow at West Virginia University, really feel on a regular basis individuals could get the quick finish of the stick.
“This kind of a regulation is often there because powerful businesses want them,” Mitchell stated, “not because they protect consumers.”
Bill Jones, a 79-year-old former state legislator, supported a 2022 legislative push to open a brand new hospital in Butts County. But the trouble bumped into formidable opposition from Wellstar Health System, which operates Sylvan Grove and 10 different hospitals in Georgia.
“As a nonprofit health system, we are always exploring partnerships that expand our mission of enhancing wellbeing in the communities we serve,” stated Matthew O’Connor, a Wellstar spokesperson. “Our analysis indicates that another hospital in this area is not needed at this time.”
This yr, Georgia Democrats thought they might leverage Republicans’ curiosity in loosening the principles to realize help for Medicaid growth. But Democrats have been outnumbered within the legislature, and lawmakers eased a number of guidelines with out that trade-off.
For instance, sure hospital tasks in rural counties are actually exempt. Jones’ venture and his residence county look prone to profit.
Burt Jones, Georgia’s lieutenant governor, who’s being investigated for his function as a faux elector for Donald Trump within the 2020 presidential election, maintains his push for adjustments to the principles isn’t about serving to his father.
“It will give people access to health care in a reasonable travel time and convenience for them as well,” Burt Jones stated.
Bill Jones has used Butts County as the house base to construct his enterprise community, which incorporates petroleum distribution, retail comfort shops, and fast-food eating places. In a latest interview, he complained about media protection of his son’s legislative connection to the hospital venture.
He stated his curiosity in opening one other native hospital is about neighborhood want and, at the least partially, stems from his private expertise. His spouse will get medical providers at Emory Healthcare, greater than 40 miles away in Atlanta.
“You’re not going to get the attention you need medically” on the 25-bed Sylvan Grove hospital in Jackson, he stated. “Health care ought not to be about politics.”
But the lieutenant governor needed to be considerably conscious that laws he was pushing could possibly be seen as financially benefiting an in depth member of the family, stated Josh McLaurin, a Democratic state senator whose district runs from Atlanta into its northern suburbs. Fellow members of the Democratic Party have been inspired to help the certificates of want invoice, though the GOP has a majority within the Georgia Legislature, he stated.
“If they want Democrats on board on a bill they could probably pass without our votes, that tends to suggest that there’s a concern about the narrative,” McLaurin stated.
Hospital business lobbyists, conscious of the Jones-Butts County connection, watched the talk with concern of wholesale repeal of the certificates of want legal guidelines, which finally didn’t occur.
The last invoice doesn’t title Butts County particularly. But it does exempt “a new general acute care hospital in a rural county” from having to acquire a certificates of want. With a inhabitants of about 27,000, Butts County meets the definition of “rural” outlined in Georgia legislation.
Now, the small native firm for which Whitehouse works — Interstate Health Systems, which is partly owned by Bill Jones — is transferring ahead. Land is being cleared for medical workplace buildings, probably to lure suppliers to the world.
Whitehouse stated main hospital techniques already working in Georgia are fascinated with partnering on building and operation of a brand new facility.
Members of the Butts County Hospital Authority, which oversees Sylvan Grove, declined to remark. But final yr, county commissioners handed a resolution encouraging the hospital authority to pursue a brand new facility.
Byrd Garland, a retired legal professional and former hospital authority member, stated he’d admire any venture that provides individuals native entry to well being care, “so they don’t have to drive an hour or two hours to get to it.”
Garland stated he’s obtained each good and unhealthy care at Sylvan Grove, and typically would somewhat make the trek to Atlanta to a better-resourced hospital.
“You get that kind of mindset when you’ve grown up out here in this medical desert that we’re in now,” he stated.
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