Continuing on from last week’s column on the certificate of need repeal drum beats, Gov. Patrick Morrisey added new appointees to a board that makes decisions regarding certificate of need applications submitted by current and potential health care providers for new services.

Last Tuesday, Morrisey appointed former lawmaker Heather Glasko-Tully, former West Virginia Republican Party chairman Doug McKinney, and former Attorney General staffer Robert Cheren to the state Health Care Authority.

According to State Code, the Health Care Authority — created by the Legislature in 1983 — has several responsibilities, including “approving or disapproving plans for the development of new health care services, major construction or renovations of health care facilities and the acquisition of major medical equipment…” This is otherwise known as the certificate of need program.

West Virginia’s certificate of need rules, signed into law in 1977, were designed to help control health care costs and prohibit duplicative or unneeded medical services in communities. Health care providers are required to receive a certificate of need from the West Virginia Health Care Authority.

The thought process behind many of these laws was that if hospitals and other facilities have empty beds, the cost for those beds increases, causing inflation. Certificate of Need programs are supposed to ensure that no more facilities are built than what are needed, helping keep health care costs low and ensuring access.

Supporters of repealing CON believe that ending the program will give residents more options for health care, increase the number of rural hospitals in the state, and provide more savings in health care costs and possibly save more lives.

Glasko-Tully, a nurse in Nicholas County, served in the House of Delegates and was the vice chair to the House Health and Human Resources before losing her Republican primary in May 2024. She was a frequent co-sponsor of bills to repeal the state’s CON program.

McKinney is a retired doctor who previously worked at the Clarksburg VA Medical Center, including serving 10 years as chief of urology. McKinney served as chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party in the late 2000s. He is also an unabashed Morrisey supporter.

Cheren, a former special assistant to Morrisey when he previously served as the state Attorney General, is senior counsel at Empower Oversight Whistleblowers and Research, a non-profit that provides resources for government and corporate whistleblowers.

If you recall from my column last week, Morrisey said to stay tuned for some announcements regarding certificate of need. Morrisey is a big supporter of ending the CON program and had advocated hard for such legislation during the previous session that ended in April. That bill died in committee early on during the session.

One can’t help but wonder if these appointments to the Health Care Authority of a CON opponent, a former Morrisey staffer, and a major Morrisey supporter are part of whatever plan Morrisey has for ending the CON program. The Health Care Authority is a three-member board whose members must be approved by the state Senate.

According to the West Virginia Blue Book, “one member shall have a background in health care finance or economics, one shall have previous employment experience in human services or business administration or substantially related fields and one shall be a consumer of health services…” All three appointments meet those qualifications, I think.

However, it also says that “no more than two members may be members of the same political party.” I’m trying to find out which appointee isn’t a Republican, but unless someone switched to unaffiliated, all three have connections to Republican politics.

Being a member of the Health Care Authority also comes with pay. The chair, which the governor gets to name, is paid $80,000 annually, while the two other members get paid $70,000 annually.

So, what is the plan here? Morrisey still needs the Legislature to pass a bill to repeal CON. But with the new members of the Health Care Authority either hostile to CON or willing to go along, I can see a scenario where this new Health Care Authority could simply just rubberstamp CON requests.

The West Virginia chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the conservative political group that supported Morrisey in his Republican primary for governor and supports CON repeal, released a statement Wednesday praising the appointments.

“Governor Morrisey’s appointments to the Health Care Authority Board are yet another outstanding demonstration of what bold, principled leadership looks like,” said AFP-WV State Director Jason Huffman. “Like Governor Morrisey, these individuals know that government-run health care monopolies created by anti-competitive CON laws are unequivocally destructive to West Virginians’ ability to access more affordable, better-quality options for care. We very much look forward to seeing this reimagined board operationalize that shared vision.”

Of note: Huffman was also appointed by Morrisey Tuesday to a slot on the eight-member Judicial Vacancy Advisory Commission, which provides recommendations to the governor for judicial appointments to fill vacancies.

We’ll just have to wait and see what this all means.