Malloy Overreach May Face Court Challenge From Hospitals.

Governor Dannel P. Malloy’s executive order number 51 reveals Connecticut’s chief executive at his grabbiest. The order provides another device for Malloy to carry on his war on the state’s hospitals. The order imposes a moratorium on hospital affiliations involving Hartford HealthCare and Yale New Haven Hospital System, two of Malloy’s most frequent targets in his ongoing assault on healthcare. The order directs the Office of Health Care Access (OCHA) and the Department of Social Services (DSS) to take no action on certain applications for Certificates of Need (CON).

The order establishes a large task force to review the CON process and report to Malloy at the end of 2016. The suspension of the CON process will continue until January 15, 2017.

The state legislature has authorized by statute a complicated scheme of regulating healthcare providers, particularly their ability to adapt, grow and contract to changing circumstances. Nowhere in those statutes or, tellingly, in Malloy’s order, is a law cited that permits the governor to shutdown the process. Malloy may soon find his authority under question by the hospitals in a court challenge.

The order only applies to in-state hospitals, not to out-of-state healthcare organizations seeking to move into Connecticut.

Malloy, who has carried on about compensation in hospital executive suites for all but the burdensome University of Connecticut Health Care Center, has been unhappy with hospitals since his ill-considered 2011 budget. The hospitals have been hindered in dealing with Malloy and his office by their decision to use the inept Connecticut Hospital Association as their collective vessel. The hospitals could save millions in wasted spending by making major changes–or disbanding–that expensive mess.