JULY 29, 2024 — The Delaware House of Representatives Republican Caucus fully supports ChristianaCare’s lawsuit challenging a new state law that usurps financial control of Delaware’s non-profit hospitals.
Sponsored by Speaker of the House Valerie Longhurst (D-Bear), House Substitute 2 for House Bill 350 was enacted about six weeks ago, giving a politically appointed board full authority over critical hospital spending decisions.
Governor John Carney and House and Senate Democrats maintained that the authoritarian overreach was needed to control rising healthcare costs, ignoring the many other factors driving the escalation of healthcare and their lack of action to curtail the state’s own healthcare expenses.
Under the law, hospitals with budgets exceeding growth benchmarks set by the state are coerced to comply, possibly facing fines of up to $500,000 if they fail.
In a statement issued today, ChristianaCare maintains the new law violates Delaware’s general corporation law and state constitution by authorizing the “unelected and unaccountable” Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board to “override the strategic and budgetary decisions made by the hospitals’ duly elected directors.”
Nicholas Marsini, the chair of ChristianaCare’s Health System Board, noted that the new law not only raises issues for Delaware’s non-profit hospitals but potentially casts a pall over “any corporation that does business in Delaware.” That should concern every Delawarean since more than a third of state revenue is currently derived from businesses incorporated here—money that would likely be replaced by higher taxes if those entities went elsewhere.
House Republicans have consistently opposed his legislation.
Given its momentous reach and scope, the measure was rushed. It was first introduced on March 12 and was passed by the legislature in its final form—its third incarnation—on May 21st. The House Health Committee was never allowed to scrutinize the bill, with Speaker Longhurst gaming the system by assigning it instead to the House Administration Committee, which is exclusively controlled by herself and the two other leaders of the House Democratic Caucus.
HS 2 for HB 350 is an exercise in conceit. Its supporters believe that government appointees are more capable of making hospitals’ spending decisions than the men and women who have spent their careers working in the healthcare sector.
This poorly conceived law is symptomatic of the bad policymaking that occurs when a single party controls the lawmaking apparatus. A state government with one-party rule does not engage in consensus building nor reflect any perspective that is not in keeping with its monoculture of political thought. The result is a growing list of plaintiffs like ChristianaCare who are forced to head to court to secure the fair consideration they should have received in the legislature and by the governor.
