Current Action Item
Help with Today's Effort
From time to time we will have action items that you can
participate in and help support the Washington CHOICE effort,
such as sending a letter to a senator in support of
new legislation. Our currently active action items are listed below.
Thank you for your help and support.
Thursday, March 22 2007
Send a Letter Supporting Bill 5509 - Part 3
The Washington State Senate passed SB 5509 on March 13th by a unanimous
vote of 46-0. Now, SB 5509 is headed for the House of Representatives and
the Health Care and Wellness committee, headed by Rep. Eileen Cody.
This is a critical time and we continue to need your support to ensure
that SB 5509 passes through the Health Care and Wellness Committee and
heads to the House of Representatives for an approval vote.
Show your support for Senate Bill 5509
and send a letter to the Health Care and Wellness committee of the House of
Representatives. We have drafted a form letter that you can send directly from
our site to each of the committee members expressing your concern and support.
Please fill out the simple form below and click submit to have your message delivered.
Your name will be added to the message and sent to each of the committee members.
Please only submit the letter once to avoid harassing the committee members and
damaging any benefit our show of support could achieve.
If you like, you can develop your own letter since personal letters and phone calls
generally seem to get the best response. Writing your own personal letter demonstrates
the strength of feeling you have about the issues. Relaying personal experiences about
the issues also really helps to communicate the key points persuasively. If you would
prefer to draft your own message to the committee you can use their online contact form at:
Health Care & Wellness Committee
Below you will find the content of our message that you will be sending to the committee members.
When you are done reviewing the message simply fill our your name and email address and click
submit to send your personalized support.
Letter Supporting Bill 5509
Dear Representative,
I am writing to ask you to support SB 5509--a bill that has gained broad
bipartisan support, including the Washington State Nurses Association,
consumers, and supporters of health care choice. Why?
There is a clear need to stop the unfair attacks and investigations on
health care practitioners when there is no patient harm or patient complaint.
Through the sensible changes brought by successful passage of SB 5509, the
most important will be the positive effect for all licensed health care
practioners: physicians, nurse and nurse practioners, and all health
professionals, including holistic and alternative practitioners.
It tells you something when you see SB 5509 passed through three Senate
committees with unanimous votes. To cap it off, the Senate sent their
strong message as they passed SB 5509 with a resounding 46-0 vote.
Senate Bill 5509 will impose sensible procedural safeguards. The most
important safeguard will require the Disciplinary Boards to consult
with a practitioner who "utilizes the procedures in question in the
complaint" to determine whether the accused health care provider is
guilty of "unprofessional conduct." Licensed professionals are entitled
to be judged by their peers.
Thanks to a wide range of health care practitioners--including conventional
and holistic physicians, nurses, and other providers--consumers have found
life-giving treatments for themselves and their loved ones. Plus, scarce
public dollars have been saved.
Here's one such example. "Send your son to a state institution," conventional
practitioners told a devastated mother, "we have concluded your son can not
be helped." Forget about him? This mother said "No way." Instead, she found she
had another choice. This mother found a holistic medical doctor who helped her son.
And with that choice she found solid answers. Today, after only three years,
her son has gone from a non-functioning child to a highly functional pre-teen,
enjoying school, friends, and life in general.
If that weren't enough reason to celebrate, lawmakers will appreciate that
the cost of state-paid institutionalization, quoted at $162,000 per year,
was also saved. Multiply that example by the consumers who seek and benefit
from the choice of holistic and alternative medical care. True health care
choice means having an unlimited range of options from which to choose; it
does not mean choices limited to a narrow range approved by a State agency.
Senate Bill 5509 will help reign in unnecessary investigations, help consumers,
and allow the authorities to focus on real problems. Please vote for SB 5509.
I am in full support of SB 5509 and ask that you please vote "yes" to pass
this bill out of committee.
Sincerely,
