Closed system

Regarding your July 31 article "Novant plants its flag on hospital giants' turf":

A successful North Carolina company with $2.25 billion in revenue last year wants to build a $110 million facility in Holly Springs, at the town's invitation, that will initially employ 200 people in the rapidly growing health care field. There are no reported incentives needed to attract the new facility.

Instead of a warm welcome for the economic development the business will bring and the jobs it will create, however, Novant Health faces a challenge under the state's certificate of need (with the apt acronym of CON) rules from the established oligopoly of UNC Health Care, Duke University Health System and WakeMed.

Contrast this with Spirit AeroSystems in the Global TransPark, which can receive $180 million in incentives if it adds 500 jobs in six years.

If North Carolina is to remain a world leader in health care, the state should allow innovative companies to thrive, not prevent them from expanding. It seems that if a company wants to produce airplane parts, the state is willing to pay it to come. But if a company provides care for the sick, the state throws as many stumbling blocks in its way as possible.

Joseph Coletti, Fiscal and Health Care Policy Analyst, John Locke Foundation, Raleigh