Urgent! Oppose OR HB 2303 A-3 Attempting to restrict Wellness Coaches, Life Coaches, & Hypnotherapists!

Urgent:  Oppose Oregon House Bill 2303 A-3
Attempting to restrict Wellness Coaches, Life Coaches, and Hypnotherapists!

Please tell your legislator and the Oregon Health Authority to oppose this draconian restrictive bill infringing on the rights of thousands of Oregon wellness practitioners.  Tell them that Oregon needs a Safe Harbor law like other states that protects all practitioners, healers, coaches, and wonderful practitioners that are not licensed or registered in the conventional health care system!  Take Action Here!

Oregon legislators testify that they “just want to know where everyone is” and that it is a simple “registration” requirement.  But that is not what the language of the bill says!

This bill would allow Oregon to round up every person who is working to help people with wellness and force them to register with the government before they are allowed to use their vocational titles, and then have the government establish by rulemaking, qualifications for each type of practitioner, including training and experience and, if appropriate, examinations, and ethical standards that must be observed.  The bill even puts restrictions on the types of agencies and organizations that they can be employed by.

The bill recommends grouping an entire list of practitioners into a category which they would call “Alternative behavioral health practitioners“, which would include regulation of all hypnotherapists, sexologists, somatic therapists, life coaches, parenting coaches, and wellness coaches.

Oregon has not even considered the least restrictive type of legislation which is a safe harbor bill that spells out prohibited acts and requires disclosure to consumers by complementary and alternative health care practitioners like other states with no permit or registration necessary.  And they have not brought forth the option of being required to give your name and background to the government to get a permit to practice which would be the second least restrictive type of government involvement in vocational regulation.  But this bill goes way beyond those options and is a type of registration that restricts use of title, puts the government in charge of deciding what types of qualifications people need in order to provide services under their professions, and puts further employment requirements on practitioners.  This is way beyond a registry!

It is not the government’s job to regulate all people that care for each other.  It is a huge indiscretion on the government’s part to promote such a massive regulatory concept of regular people and their vocations, who are not posing a risk of harm to the public.  Governments constitutionally have no right to regulate professions that do not pose a risk of harm.

Please Take Action Here and oppose this amended bill and promote a safe harbor law for the state of Oregon.