Georgia senators want to give new hospitals to be built in counties with fewer than 50,000 residents exclusive of state permission, a measure particularly aimed at allowing an undisclosed entity to accomplish a new hospital in the home county of Lt. Gov. Burt Jones.

Senators dedicated 42-13 to pass Senate Bill 99 on Monday, sending it to the House for more debate.

The measure says governments or privileged nonprofit groups can build hospitals in less-populated counties exclusive of getting a certificate of need from the state Department of Community Health.

The certificates, in place in Georgia since the 1970s, require someone who wants to accomplish a new health care facility or offer some new ceremonies to prove that such an expansion is needed in the people. They're meant to prevent overspending that would increase healthcare costs.

But incumbent hospitals and health care providers often oppose new developments in their territories, and those who dislike the certificates say they save needed competition and unfairly prop up incumbents' revenues.

"This a bill that grants free markets to operate in the health care spectrum," said Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Republican from Cumming who sponsored the bill.

Supporters of the exemption for hospitals in smaller counties say that it would help aid health care investment in rural areas that lack it. But much of the debate has focused on Jackson County, on the suburban fringe southeast of Atlanta, where the Republican lieutenant governor is from.

There, the Marietta-based Wellstar Health System operates the county-owned Sylvan Grove Hospital. County commissioners say the 25-bed hospital doesn't provide enough service industries to meet the county's needs.

Wellstar, however, has said a new 100-bed hospital would hurt both Sylvan Grove and the larger 160-bed Wellstar Spalding Regional Hospital in about Griffin.

"If a hospital is locates too close to new hospital, there's a hardship on the other hospital because patients are poached," said Sen. Nan Orrock, an Atlanta Democrat. "You've expended a lot of cash and resources, but they're fighting over serving the same patient base."

Senators are also considering the broader Senate Bill 162 that would performance certificates with a less restrictive special health-care service permits. That bill would apply to all health care service industries and not just hospitals. The measure would also place rules for how much health care providers with the special permits would have to spend on caring for patients who can't pay.

But Sen. Bill Cowsert, an Athens Republican, said Monday's bill is "very narrowly focused on a quandary we have dealt with in this chamber in the last decade: adequate service industries for the rural areas of our state."

While some conditions have repealed certificate-of-need laws, Georgia is among 36 conditions and the District of Columbia still using them.