New York has always celebrated the entrepreneurial spirit — the corner deli, the local bakery and the neighborhood businesses. Over the last several years, we have witnessed a crisis that has unfolded for these very same local businesses, driven not only by tax rates or utility costs, but by the crippling price of providing health coverage. For local businesses, the cost of health care is no longer a benefit; it has become an existential threat — and the primary culprits are the state’s massive, consolidated hospital systems.

The data is stark. While health insurance premiums are increasing more than 10% for small employers, a rate far exceeding inflation, these increases are merely a symptom of a deeper illness: the growing lack of competition in our hospital markets. Over the last decade,........

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