State Bill of the Month – March 2026: Georgia House Bill 1393

Introduced by Georgia State Representatives William Werkheiser (R-GA-157), Angie O’Steen (R-GA-169), Leesa Hagan (R-GA-156), James Burchett (R-GA-176), Butch Parrish (R-GA-158), John Corbett (R-GA-174) and Ben Watson (R-GA-1), Georgia House Bill 1393 would significantly expand the ability of rural hospital authorities in Georgia to collaborate with one another and with outside healthcare entities while shielding that conduct from antitrust scrutiny. This bill would also fully repeal Georgia’s certificate of need (CON) laws except for long-term care facilities (nursing homes).

At a high level, H.B. 1393 is a rural healthcare stabilization measure. The bill’s stated purpose is to help rural hospitals preserve independence while still gaining leverage and scale in negotiations with insurers and other third parties. In practice, however, the legislation goes much further than simple operational flexibility. It would expressly authorize coordinated or joint negotiations with third-party payors, joint purchasing arrangements, shared staffing, information sharing, coordinated service-line decisions, and broader joint ventures and affiliations among rural hospital authorities and other healthcare providers.

Rural hospitals face real and serious challenges: workforce shortages, financial distress, service-line instability, and difficulty negotiating favorable reimbursement rates. Those concerns are not trivial. Rural hospitals often operate on thin margins, and many communities depend on a single provider for emergency care, inpatient services, and basic access to physicians. The legislation would let these beleaguered hospitals do more to serve patients and collaborate with other institutions without fear of antitrust investigations.

H.B. 1393 declares that rural hospital authorities and a wide range of “collaborating entities” should be fully immune from liability under antitrust laws. That protection extends to affiliations, joint ventures, shared contracting, network arrangements, and other collaborative activity. For example, if hospitals feel the need to set up joint ventures involving specialized clinical services that would normally be unavailable to patients, bureaucrats can no longer get in the way. The bill also attempts to preempt one of the key legal guardrails in antitrust doctrine by declaring that “active state supervision” is unnecessary—or, if a court says otherwise, by designating local governing bodies as the supervising authority.

Critically, H.B. 1393 would also do away with CON-related red tape holding back healthcare competition and innovation. CON laws restrict healthcare competition by requiring providers to obtain government approval before expanding services, opening facilities, or purchasing major equipment—effectively shielding incumbent hospitals from new entrants. These regimes often allow existing providers to challenge or delay competitors’ applications, turning what should be a market-driven process into a politicized barrier to entry. As a result, fewer hospitals, imaging centers, and specialty clinics can open or expand, limiting patient choice and reducing the competitive pressure that typically drives down prices and improves quality. Eliminating these harmful regulations is great news for patients and their providers.

H.B. 1393 cuts healthcare-related red tape in the Peach State, and would open Georgia healthcare markets to easier entry, expansion, and collaboration.  

It is for these reasons that the Taxpayers Protection Alliance is pleased to make HB 1393, as introduced by Georgia State Representatives William Werkheiser (R-GA-157), Angie O’Steen (R-GA-169), Leesa Hagan (R-GA-156), James Burchett (R-GA-176), Butch Parrish (R-GA-158), John Corbett (R-GA-174) and Ben Watson (R-GA-1), its State Bill of the Month for March 2026.