Uncategorized

New Safe Harbor Bills Filed for 2023-2024 Legislative Session

It’s a victory for those of us wishing to keep health freedom strong in Massachusetts, offering the widest variety of healthcare choice by protecting unlicensed holistic practitioners and our right to access them.

Both HD.953 and SD.1365 — An Act providing for consumer access to and the right to practice complementary and alternative health care services — have been filed for the new legislative session, and are again on their way to gaining attention, support and ultimately passage!

HD.953 was filed by Rep Brian W. Murphy, and SD.1365 was once again filed by Sen. Nick Collins. Thank you to these legislative leaders on this cause.

WE NEED YOUR HELP IN GATHERING CO-SPONSORS FOR THIS BILL.

Please contact your Representative and Senator TODAY and personally ask for their co-sponsorship. (See sample below)

Hearing from voters is powerful in helping legislation gain traction. A personal letter of phone call is best, but email works just as well. Continued interest on your part in passage of this bill is crucial. Find your legislator here:

https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator

With our committee down to just four members, we need your help more than ever!

Please let us know if you can help our members on team meetings in person and online to advocate for and educate legislators about our bill. Email: healthfreedomma@gmail.com.

Thank you!

Sample Email or Phone Script

Dear Sen/Rep     ,

I am contacting you in a request for signing on as a co-sponsor to HD.953 and SD.1365 — An Act providing for consumer access to and the right to practice complementary and alternative health care services.

Healthcare freedom and choice is very important to me. This bill will protect the thousands of unlicensed healthcare practitioners whose services have become essential to the continued wellbeing of millions of Baystate residents who rely on and enjoy easy, affordable access to the services of these unlicensed practitioners. This safe harbor bill gives them the legal protection to continue providing their healthcare services in Massachusetts.

Please let me know if I can have members of Health Freedom Action Massachusetts contact you further with details about the bill to help you with your decision. Thank you.

Sincerely,

We’re In the Final Stretch! Please Help!

S.2634 Safe Harbor Bill protecting holistic practitioners from potential charges of practicing medicine without a license, still sits in the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, awaiting a favorable release out of the Committee and onto the Senate floor for a vote.

Bill co-sponsor Senator Nick Collins has submitted the letter below to urge Committee Chair Senator Rodrigues to take action now.

Please contact Chair Rodrigues now by phone (617) 722-1114 or email Michael.Rodrigues@masenate.gov to aid in this effort in the last stretch of the extended legislative session.

Thank you!

HFAMA Committee

Our Bill Passed the Public Health Committee and
Heads to the Senate Ways and Means Committee
Now It’s Time to Send it to the Senate Floor!

Great News! The Massachusetts Safe Harbor Practitioner Exemption Bill, S.2634 (formerly S.665/H.3660), is one step closer to becoming law!

The Joint Committee on Public Health recently passed S.2634 out of committee and sent it to the Senate Ways and Means committee.  When it passes this committee, it heads to the Senate floor for a vote.

Our immediate task is to urge legislators to send it now to the Senate floor for a vote.  After passing the Senate, the bill will need to be voted on by the full House, before the session ends in July.  Time is of the essence!

We acknowledge legislators are tied-up handling the COVID-19 crisis and we want to be sensitive to that.  Yet, we believe S.2634 is now more important than ever given its potential to:

• Reduce the strain on allopathic care providers and
• Boost the economy by supporting small alternative health care businesses in Massachusetts

Help us move this bill forward by contacting your senator and letting them know that you support this bill to guarantee alternative health care practitioners in Massachusetts the freedom to practice their professions and to preserve your access to these critical health care professionals.

Even if your Senator is not on Senate Ways and Means Committee, and even if you’ve already contacted your legislators about this bill, informing them about the progress of S.2634 reminds them of your interests and encourages them to focus on this important, solution-oriented bill.

Please help get this bill the attention it deserves!  Take Action Here. 

Massachusetts is so close to becoming the 12th Safe Harbor state and we don’t want the issue to be forgotten during this time when legislators are so focused on COVID-19-specific legislation!

Together we can protect complementary and alternative health practitioners who are vulnerable to being charged criminally for practicing medicine – or other licensed health care professions – without a license. Please stand with us and contact your senator to urge their support of this important bill.

Thank you!

It was the week leading up to Martin Luther King Day at the State House. And HFAMA volunteers Clark Reddick, Deb Fox and Anne Fish turned to Martin Luther King for inspiration as they walked the halls to drum up support for S665/H3660 to achieve our dream of health freedom. Meeting with numerous representatives and senators, they universally met with strong support and achieved commitments from an additional 4 legislators to support the legislation.

The bill is due out of the Joint Committee for Public Health on February 5. From there it may move quickly to a floor vote.

Where our prior efforts have been focused on educating Public Health committee members about the act, our efforts now turn to legislators who may not be familiar with the legislation. With only a few weeks before the bill emerges from committee, our dedicated core of volunteers is redoubling its efforts to achieve our dream of making Massachusetts the 12th state in the union to pass health freedom.

If you haven’t already done so, please contact your state senator and representative today to ask them to support this bill when it is very likely to come up for a vote this spring. Find your legislators here:
https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator

Co-Chairs John Mahoney and Jo Comerford (pictured right) take notes as Kim Valeri Povey testifies.

On November 19, 2019 over 12 months of work culminated in a public hearing on H3660/S665, The Massachusetts Consumer Access and Right to Practice Complementary and Alternative Health Care Act, as reaction to the bill was heard by the Joint Committee on Public Health.

Rep. Donald Wong introduced the bill accompanied by two MDs and a chiropractor who all underscored the need for safe harbor for unlicensed holistic health practitioners.

An additional 34 individuals who had traveled from all corners of the state spoke out in support of the bill while not a single voice was raised in opposition.

The bill now moves into an executive session where we hope it will be favorably passed quickly out of the committee and sent to the floor for a vote.

S665/H3660 remains in the Joint Committee on Public Health, where it is expected to receive a hearing in the fall. We are preparing for this important date by collecting more testimony (see June 3 post below for details). If you have not yet sent in your testimony, please send it today to carol@spiritofchange.org.  To pass this bill, we urgently need first-person accounts of why health freedom matters.  Share your stories of how holistic health has helped you and your clients.  Implore your legislators to enact this bill to ensure this most basic freedom – the right to safeguard and access holistic health practitioners.

Currently, 26 legislators have signed on as sponsors of this bill, and we expect to add more as the hearing date approaches. Legislators continue to respond positively during all lobbying efforts, easily grasping the common sense, no-cost benefits to consumers and practitioners the bill provides, while preserving health freedom options for Massachusetts residents. Maine’s passage of a similar safe harbor practitioner exemption law last month serves as further confirmation to legislators about the rationale and need for the passage of the bill in this state.

Our Senate bill continues to attract new co-sponsors (House rules limit the co-sponsorship period of House bills to one week which closed in April).  Rep. Michael Soter signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill as we prepped for our Rally Day on April 11.  As activists for the bill made the rounds of the State House and met with their legislators, Rep. Patrick O’Connor was also persuaded to add his name as a co-sponsor.  But it was Rep. Sean Garballey who got the ball rolling in the early days of our bill when he became an endorser of the bill in January.

As a final spring push for our bill, April 25 was scheduled for our final rally day of the season.  It proved to be our third and most successful rally day.  Twenty-one activists joined three committee members gathered that day to gin up support for our health freedom bill.  While five groups spread out across the State House to meet with legislators from around the state, a small group broke off for a photo opportunity at the rostrum of the famous Senate Chambers with the latest co-signer of the bill, Sen. Patrick O’Connor.