Please Help Fill the Senate Hearing Room at the Wisconsin Capitol on Thursday, January 23, at 12:00 p. m.

Please Help Fill the Senate Hearing Room at the Wisconsin Capitol on
Thursday, January 23, at 12:00 p. m.

Please Support Access to Complementary and Alternative Healthcare!

Great News! Wisconsin’s “Safe Harbor” Practitioner Exemption bill is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Health Committee on Thursday, January 23, 2020, at 12 p.m.  The first hearing was Jan. 7 in the Assembly and now we are happy to report that the Senate will hear the bill too!   This bill, SB492/AB546 protects access to practitioners who provide complementary health care services in Wisconsin, including herbalists, traditional naturopaths, homeopaths, nutrition consultants, and many others. We need you there!  A strong showing will help this bill pass out of the Committee!  Read the bill here.  Please complete the Take Action steps below to help pass SB492 into law and join us in Madison this Thursday!

Take Action Steps (How YOU Can Help Right NOW):

1. Click here to email your personal legislators to ask for their support on SB492.  Please personalize the letter prepared for you to make your message more impactful.

2. Call Committee Members to ask for a YES vote on SB492. After completing step one, you’ll receive an email with phone numbers for members of the Senate Health Committee and an example message to share with them.

3. Prepare and Submit your personal testimony. Sharing your story – whether in person or in writing – is so crucial to the success of this bill!  Legislators love personal stories and hearing your successful experience using complementary and alternative health care could be key to unlocking a committee member’s yes vote.  Use this simple form to send WIHFC your testimony and we’ll submit it to the committee for you. See below for an example.  If you have questions about testifying or anything else, please join us for a conference call tomorrow night.

Pre-Hearing Conference Call with NHFA on Monday, Jan 20 at 06:30 PM: 

Join URL:  https://zoom.us/j/648841471
Or
 Dial:  +1 646 876 9923;  Meeting ID: 648 841 471

4. Come to Thursday’s Hearing.  Testimony on SB492 might not begin until around 12 pm so please come even if you’ll arrive late, or can’t stay for the entire hearing, or even if you don’t want to provide public testimony!  Showing up to “register in person in favor” of the bill is an important form of public participation and will be necessary for this bill to pass. If you choose, you can also testify at the hearing.  You can read your testimony or just tell your story.  This is your opportunity to have your voice heard. The more testifiers the better!

When: Thursday, January 23 at 12 PM to TBD
Where:  Wisconsin State Capitol, Room 411 South

FYI the committee won’t actually vote at the hearing; it’s our job to persuade them, now and at the hearing, to want to schedule it for a vote.  For more about what this WI bill does for complementary and alternative health practitioners and their clients, see our website here.

Thanks in advance for your help!  Together we can convince Wisconsin legislators to protect WI residents’ health freedom rights to access the healing modalities and practitioners they want.  WI’s legislative session could come to an end as early as late February so it’s crunch-time and things could be happening fast.  We want to do all we can to keep the momentum going on these bills but we will need your help! 

Example Testimony: “Members of the Committee, my name is [insert name].  I live in [city].  I support SB492 and I want you to please VOTE YES on SB492, the “Consumer Protection for Complementary Healthcare” bill.  This bill is important to me because [insert your own brief reason why you support access to complementary and alternative health care]. Thank you.”

[i.e.,

– I depend on complementary and alternative health care for myself and my family and I want Wisconsin law to protect my rights as a consumer to a free and educated choice in health care providers.

OR

– I am a practitioner of complementary healthcare and a small business owner in Wisconsin. I want to serve my clients without the fear that my state’s laws could be used to treat me as a criminal.  Please update WI law to reflect what is happening in our state.]