New Hampshire policymakers are pushing for tax breaks and incentives to draw specialty hospitals along its southern border in the hopes of gaining patients from much more populous Massachusetts, reported The Boston Globe.
The initial intent is to draw a facility from Cancer Treatment Centers for America, a for-profit hospital chain, according to the Globe. But lawmakers also are interested in drawing kidney, spine and other specialized providers.
The incentives include an exemption from a state hospital tax, as well the revocation of the Granite State's certificate of need law. The New Hampshire Union Leader, the state's leading newspaper, has editorialized in favor of a repeal.
"We're right on the border of Massachusetts, but we're also 45 minutes from the Maine border,'' New Hampshire House majority leader David J. Bettencourt told the Globe. "If you look at these specialty destination hospitals, they tend to cluster around one another, so this could create thousands of jobs.''
But Massachusetts hospital executives and policymakers are concerned the initiatives would draw away business and jobs, according to the article.
"It's going to destabilize the hospitals in northeastern Massachusetts,'' Chris Murphy, spokesman for Steward Health Care System, told the Globe.
To learn more:
- read the Boston Globe story
- read the Union-Leader editorial