Allow Colorado Citizens to Choose Their Own Manner of Healthcare Stop CO HB 16-1320

Allow Colorado Citizens to Choose Their Own Manner of Healthcare Stop CO HB 16-1320

Started
April 21, 2016
Petition to
State Senate - Colorado-006 Ellen Roberts and 40 others
Victory
This petition made change with 6,244 supporters!

Why this petition matters

Started by Energy Medicine Professional Association

Stop HB 16-1320

I do not agree with HB 16-1320 and ask for it to be stopped.  Specifically, this strips the protections created in the Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act (6-1-724), grants excessive authority to the director of the division of professions and occupations under the Department of Regulatory Activities, and incorrectly categorizes one occupation under another.

HB 16-1320 attempts to strip the consumer protections and guarantees created in the Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act and provided in (6-1-724).

These rights include the right of the public to access unlicensed alternative health care and the right of practitioners of unlicensed alternative health care to practice.  

Removal of 12-35.5-110 (e) eliminates the protections provided in section (6-1-724).

This would subject all unlicensed practitioners to regulation under Massage. The effect of this is to outlaw all alternative health care modalities unless they are individually state approved, effectively creating a license requirement for previously protected and unregulated professions. 

Please kill this bill!

Here is a small sample of the hundreds of modalities that would be affected, Subtle Energy modalities such as: Acupressure, Barbara Brennan Healing Science, Bio-photon Therapy, Bodytalk, Craniosacral Therapy, Eden Energy Medicine, EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), Energetic Healing (EH), Jin Shin Jyutsu, Healing Touch, Kinesiology, Matrix Energetics, Pranic Healing, Reconnective Healing, Reiki, Shamanic Healing, Therapeutic Touch, Touch For Health; Verbal Modalities such as: Guided Imagery, Health Coaching, Life Coaching, Quantum Healing, NLP, Spiritual Counseling, Reflexology; Movement modalities such as: Feldenkrais Method, Qigong, T’ai Chi; Modalities involving Subtle Energy of the Senses: Aromatherapy, Sound Healing, Therapeutic Musicians; Assessment modalities: Biofeedback, Iridology.

Further problems with HB 16-1320

The purpose of the bill is stated as reducing loopholes used in human trafficking and sex trade, but  in fact it only duplicates violations already listed in the Colorado Revised Statutes Title 18 - Criminal Code, including: Section 18-3-503 - Human trafficking for involuntary servitude - human trafficking of a minor for involuntary servitude; Section 18-3-504 - Human trafficking for sexual servitude - human trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude; Section 18-7-204 Keeping a place of prostitution; and Section 18-7-302 Indecent exposure.

These modalities and others like them are currently protected by the Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act.

Use of the term "Massage" is already legally restricted and protected under Title 12 Professions and Occupations, Health Care Article 35.5 Massage Therapists C.R.S. 12-35.5-118

All of the protections this bill allegedly offers already exist in the current law, with the exceptions of the ability to deny a license to a massage therapists that has engaged in human trafficking, and the minimum age requirement to receive a massage license.

As long as the provisions that safeguard the excluded practices are removed, this bill is unacceptable, and goes beyond what it was proposed for.  

This bill was initially presented as preserving the exceptions for unlicensed alternative health care under the guise of strengthening enforcement against human trafficking, and was then revised to specifically remove exactly the exemptions it was promoted as preserving. In reality it is a veiled attempt to assert regulatory control over unlicensed alternative health care modalities that compete with massage and that are specifically protected by the Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act (6-1-724).

Please Kill this Bill and preserve the rights of citizens to choose the methods of healthcare appropriate to them that were granted in the Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act.

 

 

 

Victory

This petition made change with 6,244 supporters!

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Decision Makers

  • Ellen RobertsState Senate - Colorado-006
  • Kevin LundbergState Senate - Colorado-015
  • Irene AguilarState Senate - Colorado-032
  • John CookeState Senate - Colorado-013
  • Michael MerrifieldState Senate - Colorado-011