Physical therapist fights “Competitor’s Veto” law
Butch Slaughter saw an urgent need for more home health providers to serve Mississippi’s aging population. With older Americans increasingly seeking alternatives to nursing homes that proved prone to outbreaks during the pandemic, he hoped to open a small business that would offer physical therapy and other services that patients need, delivered in the comfort and privacy of their homes. But his dream was crushed—twice over—by a pair of Mississippi laws.
The first law—Mississippi’s home health moratorium—makes opening an in-home medical service completely illegal. Not because home health services are unsafe—providers have long operated in Mississippi with the approval of state regulators. Rather, startups are illegal because existing providers successfully lobbied state legislators to shield them from competition. The ban orchestrated by those industry insiders has now been in place for nearly half a century—a full 44 years.
Even if the moratorium didn’t exist, the second law—Mississippi’s certificate-of-need (CON) requirement, or Competitor’s Veto—makes it nearly impossible to open home health startups. The CON law requires aspiring startups to file an application, which their competitors can challenge in court. The result is that entrepreneurs spend tens of thousands of dollars over multiple years trying to prove that their business is “needed.” And proving a “need” means proving that their startup won’t harm the financial interests of existing providers.
Imagine if a law said Uber wasn’t needed because we already had taxicabs. Or that Netflix was unnecessary because of Blockbuster. No ChatGPT due to Wikipedia. Such logic is absurd and self-defeating. It’s even worse when applied to the health care sector, where competition-driven innovation can mean the difference between life and death.
The moratorium and CON law are nothing more than pure political favoritism, designed to help industry insiders line their pockets at the expense of patients and entrepreneurs. So, Butch teamed up with American Dream Legal to challenge both laws in court.
Client:
Charles “Butch” Slaughter
Attorneys:
Aaron Rice, Seth Robbins
