We are skeptical about a proposal in our state Legislature to require hospital systems to get approval from the state government before a hospital campus can be purchased.

And we are not alone: As The Morning Call of Allentown and the Associated Press reported in Tuesday’s Williamsport Sun-Gazette, officials for St. Luke’s University Health Network and Lehigh Valley Health Network noted that the new law would be an unnecessary duplication of government mandates and would only add expenses and bureaucracy to the management of our state’s hospitals.

“Further regulating opportunities like acquisition when it might be the only option to keep a hospital open could do more harm than good,” Brian Downs of Lehigh Valley Health Network said.

State Sen. Judy Ward, R-Hollidaysburg, is rightfully concerned that more regulations on hospitals will prove especially challenging when hospitals and health care systems already are confronted by staffing shortages and inflation.

Ward believes that the proposal “Would only further strain these facilities, leading to decreased quality of care for all those who need it,” she said.

These are very valid concerns. We hope our state legislators contemplate them fully as they debate this additional regulation on our hospitals, and, more broadly, we hope whenever a lawmaker believes another government regulation can solve a problem that our legislature considers the full impact of burdensome, big-government “solutions.”