Protect Your Access to Natural and Alternative Health Care

Health Freedom Washington
P.O. Box 6555
Olympia, WA 98507
Phone: 360-357-6263
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Few choices are as personal and fundamental as how we choose to recover from illness and how we pursue wellness.

We are asking our representatives in Olympia to work with us to change the law to reflect an individual’s fundamental right to health care choice and the diversity of health services that one expects to find in Washington.  Current law does not distinguish between invasive, high risk medical practices and natural, non-invasive practices that hold no demonstrable risk of harm to the public.  It defines medicine so broadly that many skilled natural and alternative health care providers cannot practice without putting themselves at risk of prosecution for practicing medicine without a license.

We are seeking an exemption, or safe harbor, from licensed health care practice acts, for the many natural healing arts that are practiced in our state and pose no risk of harm to the public.  We assert that the freedom to access the healing services that individuals judge best for themselves is a fundamental right, not a privilege.  

Read Bill SB 6886 to Protect Access to Complementary and Alternative Health Care Practitioners.  Sponsored by Senators Eric Oemig (D) and Dan Swecker (R), it was referred, it was referred to the Senate Health and Long Term Care Committee on January 31^st, 2008.

SB6886 will protect citizen access to complementary and alternative health care treatments that are being provided by practitioners who do not hold conventional medical doctor licenses.  This is a common sense solution that has worked well in other states.   If a healing practice is inherently not potentially harmful, its practice should not be prohibited and its availability to consumers should not be restricted.  As of 2007, health freedom “safe harbor” exemption bills have been passed in six states (Minnesota, Rhode Island, California, Idaho, Louisiana and Oklahoma).   Fifteen other states have introduced similar legislation.

Washington RCW 18.120.010 already clearly indicates that its intent is to allow consumers access to alternative health care treatments and to allow alternative health care providers to provide such treatments so long as there is no significant harm to Washington citizens.  However, the State has been using RCW 18.71.011 (unlicensed practice of medicine) to discipline alternative healthcare providers even when there is no harm or risk of harm to Washington citizens. 

SB 6886 will: 

• Stop the unfair prosecutions of these unlicensed practitioners and protect consumer access to safe, alternative health care options. 
   

• Narrow the overly broad scope of the medical practice act, thereby allowing unlicensed healers to practice freely, as long as they make certain disclosures, particularly the fact that they are not “MDs” and are not licensed, certified or registered practitioners of the State of Washington; AND do not perform certain prohibited conduct, e.g. diagnose disease, perform surgery, administer prescription drugs, etc. 
   

• Be applicable to any unlicensed person performing a healing practice.
   

• Encourage freedom of communication between licensed and unlicensed practitioners, thus facilitating integration of care for the consumer.

SB 6886 will NOT:

• Interfere in any way with any past or future licensing!
   

• Remove any of the legal protections consumers already have!

Health Freedom Washington has also drafted another bill specifically designed to protect access to LICENSED practitioners who provide expanded, innovative, alternative and complementary health care treatments.  We do not yet have a sponsor for this Bill.  Please read our Bill to protect LICENSED Practitioners.  
 

"We want to hold our basic public policies and laws in high regard and do not want them to change with the wind, so changing laws is always regarded as a big step. But when it reflects a new paradigm for the betterment of a community, it is done with courage and with much celebration because even in the pain of the shift, it brings in hope for a better world."

Diane M. Miller J.D.
Director of Law and Public Policy
National Health Freedom Action

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