In helping states and policymakers navigate the healthcare and economic crisis of the coronavirus pandemic, independent, free-market think tanks have proposed over 100 solutions to ensure Americans have access to healthcare, students are educated, and families and businesses can financially recover. This page summarizes these policy solutions for states and provides a comprehensive list of state-specific ideas and resources.
Alabama | Alaska | Arizona | California | Colorado | Connecticut | Florida | Georgia | Hawaii | Idaho | Illinois | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Kentucky | Louisiana | Maine | Maryland | Massachusetts | Michigan | Minnesota | Mississippi | Missouri | Nebraska | New Hampshire | New Jersey | New Mexico | New York | North Carolina | Ohio | Oklahoma | Oregon | Pennsylvania | Rhode Island | South Carolina | Tennessee | Texas | Utah | Vermont | Virginia | Washington | West Virginia | Wisconsin
1. Free up healthcare resources for the sick by removing barriers that restrict the use of healthcare beds and medical equipment.
States should increase the supply of hospital beds and ventilators by removing all Certificate-of-Need (CON) barriers to hospital and healthcare facilities.
2. Fortify and expand the number of healthcare responders.
Our current healthcare providers need back-up. Yet state-level scope-of-practice laws govern—and often limit—the activities healthcare providers may engage in when caring for patients. States can bolster the number of available healthcare providers and facilities through scope-of-practice reform.
3. Allow patients to seek healthcare expertise remotely to avoid spread of disease.
As we navigate the coronavirus pandemic, other health needs will not disappear. We need to make it possible for relatively healthy patients to access medical care at home—away from carriers of the coronavirus. Tele-health and telemedicine solutions enable the healthcare system to continue serving these patients and keep them protected in this rapidly changing environment.
4. Allow healthcare professionals to serve where needs are greatest.
Many states currently require in-state licensing before a medical professional, who holds a current license in another state, is allowed to practice. According to The Buckeye Institute, states should follow Arizona’s lead and allow licensing reciprocity among all fifty states. This solution is especially powerful for states hit hardest by COVID-19 because it would allow them to tap into the expertise and support of healthcare professionals in multiple states who can help meet the growing needs.
5. Give patients financial peace of mind by eliminating surprise billing.
COVID-19 will most certainly have an impact on our economy. It is already leading to thousands of job and income losses for Americans. We need to ensure people don’t get treated and end up with enormous medical costs.
1. Keep state budgets funded, balanced, and able to provide core services by reprioritizing government spending to focus on crisis response.
States will experience increased deficits as healthcare and social welfare outlays surge and revenues decline. Tax hikes will only threaten an economic recovery when they are imposed on American families and businesses struggling to make ends meet. Instead, policymakers can produce balanced budgets during this time of financial stress in order to seed the ground for future entrepreneurship, job creation, and economic growth.
2. Give American families and businesses financial peace of mind through tax relief.
Burdensome taxes challenge families and businesses in good times. They put jobs and business survival at risk in bad times. State think tanks are driving solutions to ensure that businesses and families experience tax relief, and that the tax code get fixed to maximize short-run business liquidity while making state codes more competitive.
3. Boost job creation and innovation by cutting red tape.
Entrepreneurs suffocate under red tape. Millions of Americans will soon need to find new jobs, and state leaders can grease the wheels of innovation and job creation by scaling back regulations that lead to uncertainty and increased costs of doing business.
Solution 1: Require schools to continue providing education via distance learning.
Solution 2: Support schools and teachers working to provide quality distance learning.
Solution 3: Waive seat time requirements and make online learning “count.”
Solution 4: Work to address online equity issues for low-income and rural communities.
Solution 5: Consider school choice mechanisms to help families.
Solution 6: Share stories of innovation with all schools and districts.
Alabama | Alaska | Arizona | California | Colorado | Connecticut | Florida | Georgia | Hawaii | Idaho | Illinois | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Kentucky | Louisiana | Maine | Maryland | Massachusetts | Michigan | Minnesota | Mississippi | Missouri | Nebraska | New Hampshire | New Jersey | New Mexico | New York | North Carolina | Ohio | Oklahoma | Oregon | Pennsylvania | Rhode Island | South Carolina | Tennessee | Texas | Utah | Vermont | Virginia | Washington | West Virginia | Wisconsin
Comprehensive Solutions:
The Restore Alabama Agenda
COVID-19 in Alabama: A Primer on the Impacts of the Coronavirus on the State
Healthy Citizenry, Healthy Economy, Healthy Society
Comprehensive Solutions: Recovery Agenda for Alaska
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, expand telemedicine/technology options, recognize out-of-state licenses, scope of practice reform, expand pharmacists’ scope of practice, adjust licensing requirements for healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical reforms.
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Enact property tax deferrals or relief, cut back on government non-essentials, freeze public sector pay and hiring, loosen occupational licensing laws, extend regulatory deadlines for licenses and permits.
Comprehensive Solutions:
Coronavirus and COVID-19: Goldwater’s Insight and Analysis
Our Plan to Revitalize America and Recover from Coronavirus
Reducing the administrative State to speed recovery
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, recognize out-of-state licenses, expand pharmacists’ scope of practice, expand scope of practice for additional medical professionals, use medical and nursing students, reduce barriers to testing and experimental treatments.
Comprehensive Solutions: Suggested Executive Orders for California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Healthcare: Use medical and nursing students.
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Cut public-sector pay, repeal laws limiting independent contractors, slow enacted minimum wage increases, temporary suspension of minimum wage increase, lower minimum wage.
Other Recommendations: Resume enforcement of select laws, relocate homeless people to shelters.
Comprehensive Solutions: Smoothing the Bumpy Road to Recovery, Coronavirus
Healthcare: Expand pharmacists’ scope of practice, expand scope of practice for additional medical professionals, expand telemedicine/technology options.
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Avoid tax increases, reducing barriers for contractors, reduce barriers for contractors.
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Moratorium on deducting public union dues.
Comprehensive Solutions: Polis is Listening to Us
Healthcare: Recognize out-of-state licenses, expand pharmacists’ scope of practice, expand scope of practice for additional medical professionals, pharmaceutical reforms, insurance reforms, waive requirements for out-of-state telemedicine providers.
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Tax reform, repurpose electric car and film subsidy funds to health initiatives, waive occupational licensing requirements and filing fees, extend expiring licenses to aid economic recovery, lower minimum wage, match the IRS deadline for filing taxes.
Other Recommendations: Repeal plastic bag ban to prevent disease spread, allow more innovation in delivery services, allow legislatures to meet over video conference, lift regulations on hand sanitizer manufacturing, delay energy mandates.
Comprehensive Solutions:
Yankee Institute Policy Suggestions for Mitigating the Economic Impact of COVID-19
COVID-19 Resources and Q&A
Gov. Lamont’s panel on reopening Connecticut must include small business representatives
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Tax reform, waive occupational licensing requirements and filing fees, extend expiring licenses to aid economic recovery, temporary suspension of minimum wage increase, suspend scheduled pay increases for state employees.
Comprehensive Solutions: COVID-19 Proactive Solutions for States Healthcare, principles for reopening Florida
Healthcare: Expand telemedicine/technology options, recognize out-of-state licenses, expand pharmacists’ scope of practice, adjust licensing requirements for healthcare professionals.
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Extend tax filing deadlines, expand opportunities to start home businesses, waive occupational licensing requirements and filing fees, extend expiring licenses to aid economic recovery, postpone property tax due date.
Other Recommendations: Extend regulatory deadlines for licenses and permits, relax weight and size regulations for essential deliveries, waive hunting regulations.
Comprehensive Solutions:
Curing the Physician Shortage: State-Level Prescriptions for a National Problem
Principles for Prosperity: A Road Map for the Future of Florida
Healthcare: Expand telemedicine/technology options, recognize out-of-state licenses, expand pharmacists’ scope of practice, adjust licensing requirements for healthcare professionals, expand scope of practice for additional medical professionals insurance reforms, use medical and nursing students.
Comprehensive Solutions:
Reopening Responsibly
Fully Reopening Georgia’s Economy Safely
What You Need to Know About Coronavirus(COVID-19) in Georgia
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Establish a Georgia Task Force on the economy and education, tap into civil society resources.
Comprehensive Solutions: Near-Term Proposals as Georgia Tackles COVID-19
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, expand telemedicine/technology options, expand pharmacists’ scope of practice, expand scope of practice for additional medical professionals, adjust licensing requirements for healthcare professionals, reduce barriers to testing and experimental treatments.
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Freeze public sector pay and hiring, suspend sales tax and other fees on taxis and ride-sharing services, consider suspending or delaying collection of unemployment-insurance taxes from employers for up to three months.
Other Recommendations: Lift restrictions on working from home, extend regulatory deadlines for licenses and permits, identify vital needs best served by private sectors, allow more innovation in delivery services, prioritize crisis response funding, allow charitable organizations to distribute homemade sandwiches to the needy, immediate resumption of US visa processing for seasonal agriculture workers.
Education Solutions: Expand school choice to help students, families, and the economy
Comprehensive solutions:
18 ways to get Hawaii back on its feet
How to navigate the ‘coronavirus recession’
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Tax reform, cut non-essential state spending, temporary suspension of minimum wage increase, lower minimum wage, delay, suspend, carve exemptions for or eliminate the general excise, smart budgeting at the city level
Other Recommendations: Innovate to abide by transparency laws, pension reform.
Comprehensive Solutions:
How Government Officials Can Assist Idahoans During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Help Idahoans Help Themselves: Immediate Actions to Get Residents Working Again
Healthcare: Expand scope of practice for additional medical professionals.
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Waive occupational licensing requirements and filing fees, extend expiring licenses to aid economic recovery, freeze public sector pay and hiring, cut back on non-essentials, preemptively impose other spending cuts, suspend or postpone local occupational and business license renewal mandates, extend property tax payment periods.
Other Recommendations: Broadcast government meetings.
Comprehensive Solutions: What You Need to Know About Coronavirus in Illinois
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, recognize out-of-state licenses
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Enact property tax deferrals or relief, reform pension debts, delay or cancel taxes and fees where possible, look to other states to develop a responsible re-opening plan
Healthcare: Remove CDC and FDA red tape to increase testing availability.
Comprehensive Solutions:
Steps to an Economic Recovery
Acts of Community and Service in Iowa
Healthcare: Remove occupational licensing barriers, repeal certificate-of-need laws,
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Avoid tax increases, eliminate unnecessary regulations.
Comprehensive Solutions: Post-COVID Recovery Plan
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, expand telemedicine/technology options, recognize out-of-state licenses, expand scope of practice for additional medical professionals, use medical and nursing students, pharmaceutical reforms.
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Freeze public sector pay and hiring, spend down cash reserves to buy time to find other cost reductions, establish an independent, auditable cost/benefit analysis program for all new regulations, enact property tax relief, ease restrictions on deliveries.
Other Recommendations: Lift regulations on hand sanitizer manufacturing.
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Fight off new forms of taxation
Comprehensive Solutions:
COVID-19 Research
Post-COVID Recovery Plan
Other Recommendations: Give voters the right to consider guaranteeing rights for crime victims
Comprehensive Solutions: What Louisiana’s Government Should and Shouldn’t Do During COVID-19, Policy Solutions to Get Louisiana Working
Healthcare: Adjust licensing requirements for healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical reforms
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Don’t make Permanent changes to unemployment eligibility, increase broadband access
Other Recommendations: Allow more innovation in delivery services
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, expand telemedicine/technology options, adjust licensing requirements for healthcare professionals, insurance reforms,
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Avoid tax increases
Healthcare: Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY) Methodology Discriminates Against Older Americans, Threatens to Deny Seniors Access to Life-Saving Care; The Massachusetts Crises Of Care Guidelines Need Re-Thinking.
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Extend tax filing deadlines, learning from other nation’s reopening efforts
Comprehensive Solutions:
COVID-19: Coalition Offers Blueprint for Health, Safety and Economic Opportunity
Guiding Principles for Re-Energizing Michigan’s Economy in 2020.
Healthcare: Reform certificate-of-need laws, recognize out-of-state licenses, promote telemedicine.
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Keep all manufacturing businesses open, separate COVID-19 items from other supplemental appropriations, tap into state rainy day funds, cut non-essential state spending.
Comprehensive Solutions: What Coronavirus Means for Minnesota
Healthcare: Reform certificate-of-need laws, recognize out-of-state licenses
Other Recommendations: Pension reform
Comprehensive Solutions: An Agenda for Recovery in Mississippi
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, expand telemedicine/technology options, expand scope of practice for additional medical professionals, reduce barriers to testing and experimental treatments
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Waive occupational licensing requirements and filing fees, recognize out-of-state licenses, extend expiring licenses to aid economic recovery, require a full regulatory audit of every agency to provide regulatory relief and allow for changes to regulations, ease restrictions on deliveries, distribute federal funds to the more efficient private sector
Other Recommendations: Modernize the DMV, allow more innovation in delivery services, repeal plastic bag ban to prevent disease spread
Comprehensive Solutions:
Missouri Must Declare a Policy War on Coronavirus and Win
More Policies to Fight COVID-19
Moving Missouri Forward: COVID-19 Response
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, expand telemedicine/technology options, recognize out-of-state licenses, scope of practice reform, insurance reforms
Education: Make class time “count” by focusing on competency, not time-in-seat
Comprehensive Solutions from
Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis
The Economic Impact of COVID-19 on the Nebraska Economy: First Cut
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Separate COVID-19 items from other supplemental appropriations, cut non-essential state spending, waive occupational licensing requirements and filing fees, extend expiring licenses to aid economic recovery, extend tax filing deadline
Comprehensive Solutions: Five guidelines for reopening New Hampshires economy
Other Recommendations: Repeal plastic bag ban to prevent disease spread
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Avoid gas tax increases
Comprehensive Solutions: Eight Shutdown Decisions Gov. MLG Should Consider Reversing Right Now
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Don’t raise taxes, cut spending, relax occupational licensing rules and regulations so people can work
Other Recommendations: Repeal plastic bag ban to prevent disease spread
Comprehensive Solutions:
#NYCoronavirus Chronicles
Amid Covid, a shaky state budget
Seven Steps to Recovery & Renewal
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Enact and enforce tax caps, freeze public sector pay and hiring
Other Recommendations: Innovate to abide by transparency laws
Comprehensive Solutions: Coronavirus Policy Response
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, expand telemedicine/technology options, , scope of practice reform, insurance reforms
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Tap into state rainy day funds, keep farmers markets open and waive municipal restrictions on them, allow the sale of raw milk, match temporarily unemployed workers with farms to address labor shortage
Education Solutions: Revisit funding mechanisms to ensure equity and a quality product for students
Comprehensive Solutions: North Carolina-Based Solutions to the Coronavirus Pandemic
Carolina Rebound
Healthcare: Recognize out-of-state-licenses, expand pharmacists’ scope of practice, expand scope of practice for additional medical professionals, pharmaceutical reforms, make healthcare deregulation permanent
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Tap into state rainy day funds, extend tax filing deadline, expand access to reliable electricity
Other Recommendations: Guidelines for corrections during pandemic, guidelines for corrections during pandemic
Comprehensive Solutions: Policy Solutions for the Pandemic: How to Fight the Impact of Coronavirus, Roadmap to Reopening Safely
Healthcare: Recognize out-of-state-licenses, expand pharmacists’ scope of practice, use medical and nursing students, insurance reforms, give nurse practitioners full practice authority, adopt universal occupational license reciprocity
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Fight off new forms of taxation, end existing forms of taxation that harm businesses, reprioritize government spending, request federal support for state unemployment benefits, request federal benefits for daycare and hourly workers, transparency in reopening process, tap into state rainy day funds, increase access to reliable internet, expand broadband access
Other Recommendations: Criteria For Transitioning Ohioans Back to Work Should Be Public and Transparent
Education Solutions: Expand Education Savings Account to increase parent choices in schooling, Use ESAs to promote school choice
Comprehensive Solutions: Three dozen COVID-era policies to get Oklahoma moving again
Healthcare: Expand telemedicine/technology options
Other Recommendations: Use CARES Act money to invest in improving K-12 Education
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Fight off new forms of taxation, extend tax filing and payment deadlines, balance budgets without raising taxes
Education Solutions: Expand choice to facilitate social distancing, promote ESAs as a means of ensuring school choice for low-income families
Other Recommendations: Moratorium on deducting public union dues,
Comprehensive Solutions: Policy Recommendations to Fight COVID-19 in Pennsylvania
Healthcare: Expand telemedicine/technology options, recognize out-of-state-licenses, scope of practice reform, expand scope of practice for additional medical professionals
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Cut non-essential state spending, prepare a stop-gap budget, move special funds online, waive occupational licensing requirements and filing fees, extend expiring licenses to aid economic recovery, removing barriers to speed economic recovery
Other Recommendations: End government monopoly on liquor sales
Comprehensive Solutions:
Rhode Island COVID-19 Crisis: 20 Public Policy Solutions to Restore Financial and Health Security
10 More Rescue Policy Ideas To Aid Recovery From The COVID-19 Crisis
Healthcare: Expand telemedicine/technology options
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Waive occupational licensing requirements and filing fees, extend expiring licenses to aid economic recovery
Comprehensive Solutions:
Responding to COVID-19
SC Removes Regulatory Obstacles, More Still to be Done
Twelve steps to jumpstart a post-COVID palmetto state economy
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, expand telemedicine/technology options, use medical and nursing students, adjust licensing requirements for healthcare professionals, insurance reforms
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Cut back on non-essentials, free public sector hiring, allow beer and wine delivery, protect businesses from predatory litigation
Education Solutions: Expand school choice to promote South Carolina’s recovery
Other Recommendations: Loosen restrictions on childcare licenses, extend hunting licenses
Comprehensive Solutions: Policy Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, Don’t Call it a Comeback: getting Tennesseeans back to work
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, expand telemedicine/technology options, recognize out-of-state licenses, expand pharmacists’ scope of practice, adjust licensing requirements for healthcare professional, use medical and nursing students, give nurse practitioners full practice authority, pharmaceutical reforms, insurance reforms, reduce barriers to testing and experimental treatments
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Extend tax filing deadlines, suspend sales tax and other fees on taxis and ride-sharing services, take measures to increase liquidity for businesses, tap into state rainy day funds, freeze public sector pay and hiring, allow professionals like barbers and cosmetologists to see clients in their homes, ease restrictions on deliveries
Other Recommendations: Extend regulatory deadlines for licenses and permits, guidelines for corrections during pandemic, make good deregulations
Comprehensive Solutions: Texas Public Policy Foundation Recovery Agenda
Healthcare: Recognize out-of-state licenses, pharmaceutical reforms, insurance reforms, reduce barriers to testing and experimental treatments, increase telemedicine options
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Enforce state property tax reforms, put hold on non-essential government debt, eliminate regulations not necessary for public health and safety, ensure businesses have operating cash for re-openings
Other Recommendations: Expedite the reunification of families via the foster system,
Other Recommendations: Exercise caution in using anti-price gouging laws, ease restrictions on deliveries
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Utah rolls out plan to reopen the economy – will it ever be the same?
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Keep Cash Flowing, suspend minimum wage increase, postpone scheduled tax increases
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Cut non-essential state spending, delay for one year all measures that add to cost of living or doing business in state, and all unfunded mandates,
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Exercise caution in using anti-price gouging laws,
Comprehensive Solutions: WPC policy recommendations for combating impact of COVID-19
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, expand telemedicine/technology options, recognize out-of-state licenses, use medical and nursing students, limit medical malpractice awards
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Enact property tax deferrals or relief, reallocate state funds earmarked for capital spending and non-urgent expenses to healthcare
Transportation: A guide to navigating transportation policy decisions and mitigating risks
Other Recommendations: Review requirements for ballot measures
Other Recommendations: Three-month moratorium on public union dues would pump hundreds of millions back to hardworking Americans
Comprehensive Solutions from: Joint Letter to the Governor: Consideration of Waiving Certain Statutory Requirements Under Emergency Powers of the Governor
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, recognize out-of-state licenses, expand pharmacists’ scope of practice, adjust licensing requirements for healthcare professional, use medical and nursing students, give nurse practitioners full practice authority, reduce barriers to testing and experimental treatments
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Expedite tax refunds, complete a systematic review and suspension of all regulations that may unnecessarily inhibit the operation, profitability, or likelihood of post-COVID-19 recovery
Comprehensive Solutions:
Guidelines for Addressing an Emergency
Free Market Coalition To Gov. Evers: Continue To Cut Red Tape To Fight Pandemic
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, scope of practice reform, adjust licensing requirements for healthcare professional, use medical and nursing students, pharmaceutical reforms, reduce barriers to testing and experimental treatments
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Waive occupational licensing requirements and filing fees, extend expiring licenses to aid economic recovery, hold off on any new spending, use rainy day funds, continue existing efforts to loosen licensing requirements.
Comprehensive Solutions: Free Market Coalition To Gov. Evers: Continue To Cut Red Tape To Fight Pandemic
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, scope of practice reform, adjust licensing requirements for healthcare professional, use medical and nursing students, pharmaceutical reforms, reduce barriers to testing and experimental treatments
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Waive new taxes on workers teleworking across state lines, allow Work-Share requirements to apply to businesses of any size
Comprehensive Solutions:
How Wisconsin Should Spend its CARES K-12 Funding
Free Market Coalition To Gov. Evers: Continue To Cut Red Tape To Fight Pandemic
Healthcare: Reform Certificate of Need Laws, scope of practice reform, adjust licensing requirements for healthcare professional, use medical and nursing students, pharmaceutical reforms, reduce barriers to testing and experimental treatments
Protecting Jobs & Economies: Waive new taxes on workers teleworking across state lines, allow Work-Share requirements to apply to businesses of any size
