you're going to tell me that I'm not fit to work in your town?
Phillip Truesdell and his daughter Hannah Howe
run Legacy non-emergency ambulance service in Ohio
they take patients places for treatment, move people from hospital to hospital
take people to doctor’s appointments.
I started a business with one truck, and in a year
I went to six trucks in the state of Ohio.
But when they tried to expand to Kentucky, just a few minutes away across that river…
they were told, “you may not pick up patients here”
I can take them, and I drop them off and I can't go back and get them.
People waiting hours for medical transportation.
Kentucky’s government says a “public health crisis exists” citing a report that found
“… a shortage of ambulance providers.”
When six-year-old Kyler Truesdell fell of his motorcycle, his mother says
The doctor at the local hospital in Maysville told her that he should be transported to Cincinnati children’s
to check for internal injuries.
we’d be about a 2 hour wait before they could get there.
Kyler happens to be Hannah’s cousin, but Kyler still had to wait two hours for an ambulance.
We would’ve done it for free, but it would’ve been illegal so we couldn’t do it.
It’s illegal because of CON laws.
in Kentucky and 3 other states, you have to get something called a Certificate of Need
to run an ambulance service.
Certificates are awarded only to businesses that the state’s bureaucrats deem necessary.
So you applied for one?
We did.
After 11 months of waiting, they discovered that their application was being protested
by existing ambulance providers.
we go to court, and these three ambulance services show up
They hammered her.
Treated her like she was a criminal.
What do you mean hammered her?
They just, "Do you know what you're going to do to this company?...
...Do you know what you're going to do to this town?"
It wasn't nothing to do with us being physically able to do it.
Just came through like the big dog not trying to let anybody else on the porch.
later they learned
Four ambulance companies applied for permission.
How many got it?
None.
That didn’t seem right to Phillip
Anybody that draws breath ought to be allowed to work.
Who gives the big man the right to say, "You can't work here?"
The government.
The law.
Kentucky ought to change that law.
He and his daughter were lucky to find the Pacific Legal Foundation, a law firm that
fights for people’s right to earn a living.
46 States operate without certificate of need laws
Lawyer Anastasia Boden filed the suit with “The goal … [of restoring] the Constitution’s
promise of … economic freedom"
"This prevents a proliferation of unnecessary ambulance services."
Traditionally we allow the consumers to decide what's necessary.
The existing operators are never going to say that more businesses are necessary because
they don't like the competition.
None of those ambulance providers would talk to us
But one did send us a statement that says,
“…saturating a community with more EMS agencies than it can … support ...
... [leads] all agencies to become watered down."
"We can't have too much competition because businesses will start cutting corners."
And that's just absurd.
We now recognize that competition leads to efficient outcomes.
not in states with CON laws, where patients …wait.
Those are precious minutes to the consumers who would benefit from ambulances.
Not just ambulances, 35 states have con laws for things like medical imaging companies,
hospitals, even moving companies.
Once you get these laws on the books, it's very hard to get them off because the monopolies
like their monopoly.
This all started back in the 70s with the federal government in an attempt to keep prices
down and to expand service.
But what they found 10 years later was that certificate of need laws were resulting in
exactly the opposite.
The Feds actually learned a lesson from their mistake and said, "Whoops, this is bad.
Let's get rid of these."
But by that time, the damage was done, the laws were on the books,
and now it's too hard to get them off.
So you sue.
We sue.
They’ve taken 14 cases of government overreach to the supreme court. They won 12.
it is an abuse of government power to restrict somebody's right to earn a living just as
a handout to the other businesses.
It's not a handout.
It's protecting a vital service.
It's protecting a vital service for the current operators only.
Your local hospital could close!
In Virginia, when politicians tried to repeal their state’s hospital CON law,
the established hospitals “… poured more than $200,000 into [ads] …” like this.
the general assembly is voting on legislation that will financially ruin your local hospital
We don't see that in other States without CON laws.
We see hospitals alive and well
Call your legislator now.
But in Virginia, the ad campaign worked.
The state still has con laws.
They like these laws, they keep the competition out, and they're going to fight to keep these
laws on the books.
People think of hospitals and medical issues as different from regular competition.
It's just more important.
If it's more important than it's exactly the place where we need more competition because
competition has been the driving force of innovation, lower prices and better services.
Everywhere!
Competition works! CON laws are a bad deal for both consumers and entrepreneurs.
No one should have to ask permission to compete.
Who gives them the right to say that you can't start a business?