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Health
Freedom Bill News Alert – Feb
2010
The Wellness Bill SB 357 will have a hearing on 2/18 at 1:00 pm in Education Health and Environmental Affairs Committee room, Senate
building in
Maryland Assembly , Annapolis.
For the bill info go to the link: http://mlis.state.md.us/2010rs/billfile/sb0357.htm .
If you want to testify, go to Sen. David Harrington’s office by 10:00 am on Thursday,
2/18 in the Senate building and register to testify. If you can not go to testify then send an
e-mail to the EHEA committee members to support the bill. The list of the HGO committee members and
e-mails are on the Committee
Section.
The Wellness Bill HB 541 will have hearing on Wednesday 2/24 at 1:00 pm in the House and Government Operations Committee room. For bill info go to http://mlis.state.md.us/2010rs/billfile/hb0541.htm . If you
want to testify, go to Delegate Kirril Reznik’s office by 10:00 am on Wednesday 2/24 in the House building to
register to testify. If you can not
go to testify then send an e-mail to the HGO committee members to support
the bill. The list of the HGO
committee members and e-mails are on the Committee Section.
Dr Benjamin Rush, signer of the
Declaration of Independence stated that
"Unless we put medical freedom into the
Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an
underground dictatorship... To restrict the art of healing to one class of
men and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of
medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no
place in a republic. The Constitution of this republic should make special
privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom. Unless we put medical freedom into the
Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover
dictatorship”
The
situation that Dr. Rush predicted 200 years ago is here now. As we all know our health care system is
broke and desperately needs a health care reform law which may be enacted
soon. One of the reforms it needs is
consumer right to access Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) health care practitioners in
every state. CAM has the potential to provide
significant relief from tremendous health care burden. At this time Americans are not fully
benefiting from CAM health care systems like
Naturopathy, Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Yoga, Energy
therapies, Herbals, Mind-body therapies, Reiki, and others. The reason is
that medical acts in all states are all inclusive of all healing by any
means and CAM arts and practices are not
recognized. This makes all CAM healing arts and practices in
technical violation of the law.
Practitioners face inherent risk of prosecution, even if they limit
to education and sales.
Practitioners are always afraid of investing money in opening CAM training schools and clinics on
large scale. It is also difficult to
attract students and get accreditation of schools for CAM arts and practices. For these reasons, seven states decided to pass health
freedom laws to exempt CAM practitioners
from medical acts and similar bills have been introduced in 22 states. Hopefully, all states will have health
freedom laws in near future.
Maryland
residents also need their right to access CAM
health care providers of their choice. In order to
accomplish this, they have established a Maryland Consumer Health Freedom
Advocacy (MCHFA) group. The group
plans to work with state legislators to pass a health freedom bill similar
to Maryland House bill HB 730 and cross over SB 884 of 2008 or HB 1380 and cross
over SB 986 of 2009.
http://mlis.state.md.us/2008RS/billfile/hb0730.htmHB
1380
http://mlis.state.md.us/2009rs/bills/hb/hb1380f.pdf
GOALS
1.
Strengthen the status of Health
Freedom in Maryland
2.
Provide information and educate the
public on health freedom issues
3.
Design and promote health freedom
legal models that protect access
4.
Create public policy platforms that
promote health choice
MISSION
1.
Have a health freedom law pass in Maryland
2.
Promote legislative reforms to
protect our freedom of health care
3. Expand the availability and quality of
educational opportunities for all CAM providers
4. Increase the visibility of the
complementary and alternative health care modalities in Maryland health care system
5. Give unhindered access to all health care
information, services, treatments, and products that deem beneficial
6. Give the right to practice to all licensed and
unlicensed practitioners of all healing arts, natural and complementary
alternative medicine health care.
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