Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves answers a reporter's question on his announcement of a tech company expected to invest $10 billion to build two data processing centers that will create 1,000 jobs in central Mississippi, during a Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024, news conference in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
- State Rep. Sam Creekmore said he’s willing to remove the Senate amendment and send the measure back to the Governor.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves (R) announced Thursday that he had vetoed a bill that aimed to reform the state’s certificate of need laws.
“I have been a champion for increased competition and more health care delivery options in our state by knocking down barriers to entry,” Reeves said on social media announcing his veto, adding that he commended the Legislature, and specifically Speaker Jason White, for proposing and ultimately passing “much needed and long overdue revisions to the certificate of need laws in House Bill 569.”
However, the Governor went on to say that due to “an 11th-hour floor amendment” added in the state Senate, “my duty to faithfully adhere to the MS Constitution and the US Constitution requires me to veto this bill in its current form.”
Reeves said, “Specifically, the amendment added by Public Health Chairman Hob Bryan (Democrat-Amory) is not simply bad public policy but it violates the doctrine of separation of powers.”
The bill – HB 569 – would have made a number of changes to CON regulations in the state. One of the most important to State Rep. Sam Creekmore (R), a co-author of the measure, was the increase to spending caps in three categories: major medical equipment, clinical health services, and non-clinical health services. As previously reported, the cap for major medical equipment would have increased from $1.5 million to $3 million, while clinical health services would have increased from $5 million to $10 million, and non-clinical health services, which includes facilities, would increase from $10 million to $20 million.
The bill also would have required the Mississippi Department of Health to perform a study to determine other necessary changes to CON laws, the results of which would have been due by December 1 of this year for consideration by lawmakers during the 2026 legislative session.
Governor Reeves said that while he believes the state should not have CON laws, “to the extent the legislature chooses to maintain those laws, they must be applied fairly and equally to all market participants.” He referenced a section of the bill that, in his words, “seeks to amend the law to REQUIRE the DoH to ISSUE a CON to a specific entity in a specific city.”
“This mandatory legislative directive to issue a CON circumvents the objective statutory requirements that must be met, necessarily creating a market imbalance,” the Governor said. “Said differently, if the legislature wants to maintain a CON regulatory environment, those regulations must be equally applied to all market participants without favoritism or prejudice. Obviously, that standard is not met in the amendment to HB 569.”
Rep. Creekmore told to Magnolia Tribune the change in question allowed Oceans Healthcare to provide psychiatric care at St. Dominics. Merit Health filed a lawsuit to prevent the reopening of St. Dominic behavioral health center, leaving Merit as the only provider in that field in the central part of the state. Merit’s contention was that Oceans did not have to go through the CON process because taking over the existing facility was considered a “change of ownership,” and therefore did not require a new certificate of need.
Governor Reeves referenced the lawsuit in his message, stating, “I make no judgement here as to the merits of that case, as I believe it is the role of neither the Chief Executive nor the legislature (through this amendment) to finally resolve this dispute.”
Rep. Creekmore confirmed that part of the bill was added by the Senate in the waning days of the session, but the House concurred on the amended version to keep the bill moving through the process.
“In the spirit of trying to get something accomplished that both sides would pass, we worked with it,” Creekmore said. “And we concurred just because we didn’t want it to go to conference, and I didn’t necessarily disagree with what they added, but it certainly wasn’t that important to me that the bill would die.”
Rep. Creekmore said he is willing to drop that part of the bill because there are more important aspects of the legislation that would benefit the state’s healthcare system, namely the increases to spending caps.
“We really need to get this CON reform started. I don’t want to wait another year,” Creekmore added.
With a special session coming before July 1 to adopt the state budget, Rep. Creekmore wants to work on the bill then and get it passed this year.
Governor Reeves could add it to the special session call and allow lawmakers the opportunity to remove that section in question and send it back to his desk. If they do, Reeves said he would sign it.
“Should the MS Legislature agree to remove the Senate floor amendment to HB 569 and return it to my desk, I stand ready to sign such a bill into law,” Reeves stated.
