Measuring State Healthcare Freedom Act

This bill would require the federal health department to study, every year for 10 years, how health care competition and consolidation are changing in each state. The study must be done by the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, working with the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.

The study would track things like licensing rules for doctors and nurses, mergers among hospitals and insurers, state “certificate of need” and “certificate of public advantage” laws, the availability of short-term health plans and association health plans, the number of hospitals and clinics, and a market concentration measure called the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index. Each year, the findings and the underlying data must be posted online in a public, interactive format .

Key points

• Who is affected: Patients, providers, and insurers in every state; federal health officials who collect and publish the data.
• What changes: A new 10‑year, state‑by‑state study of health care competition, with yearly public reports and datasets .
• When: Every year for 10 years after the law takes effect, with reports and data released by the end of each year.