The General Assembly makes the following findings:
(1) that the cost of improved health technology and scientific methods contributes significantly to the increasing cost of health care;
(2) that cooperative agreements among hospitals health care purchasers, and other health care providers would foster improvements in the quality of health care for South Carolinians, moderate cost increases, improve access to needed services in rural areas, and enhance the likelihood that rural hospitals can remain open;
(3) that federal and state antitrust laws may prohibit or discourage cooperative agreements that are beneficial to South Carolinians and that such agreements should be encouraged; and
(4) that competition as currently mandated by federal and state antitrust laws should be supplanted by a regulatory program to permit and encourage cooperative agreements between hospitals, health care purchasers, or other health care providers when the benefits outweigh the disadvantages caused by their potential adverse effects on competition.
HISTORY: 1994 Act No. 437, Section 1.