NORTH CAROLINA

This is an update on the status of our legislation in the General Assembly: House Bill 1358 - The Consumer Health Freedom Act - was introduced earlier this year in the 2007-2008 session. The bill has not come to the floor for a vote yet and the legislature has adjourned for this year, but the legislation may be considered in the short session, which begins May 2008. This is an important piece of legislation for consumers interested in unrestricted access to alternative healthcare and natural healing therapies.

The primary reason we have not been able to move this bill forward is because we haven’t had the financial resources or the “large numbers” of people involved at the grassroots level to make this issue a “priority issue” with our NC legislators. In order to achieve our goal of passing a North Carolina Health Freedom Act - or simply put, to ensure access to alternative healthcare practitioners, we need to get more people involved in CHF and raise the funds to carry out our legislative and association efforts over the coming months and years.

Without CHF working in support of alternative healthcare in NC, the opponents of alternative would no doubt put the entire scope of anything related to “natural health,” “alternative healthcare” or “complementary healthcare” totally under the jurisdiction of the NC Medical Society. Stated in dollar terms, it takes $25,000 to $30,000 per year to fund a minimal lobbying effort. A major lobbying effort can cost well in excess of $100,000 per year. Some groups, such as the Medical Society (MD’s) spend millions on lobbying efforts. We can’t even think about what is spent by some groups opposed to natural health access, but we can achieve great success if we can raise enough money to cover our legislative lobbying expenses. This has to be a priority for us!

Also, we need to get as many signatures on our petition for HB 1358 as we can as soon as we can to demonstrate a grassroots interest in allowing for healthcare freedoms for all our citizens.

North Carolina The Consumer Health Freedom Act was reintroduced into the 2009 North Carolina legislature and was scheduled for it’s first hearing April 30^th, but it was taken off the schedule to give more time to negotiate agreed upon language. The bill was “developed over years of work by notable health freedom advocates, in conjunction with a year long “legislative study” by a “Legislative Study Committee.” The study committee held a series of three public hearings in major NC cities (Raleigh, Asheville, New Bern) where more than four-hundred citizens expressed support for health freedom.” Taking the lead in moving the bill and gathering support from new sources for their bill is Citizens for Health Care Freedom, a long standing reputable freedom group in North Carolina. The Sunshine Health Freedom coordinator, Claiborne Holtzman, is also President of the Citizens for Health Care Freedom. Other supporting organizations are North Carolina’s Certified Natural Health Practitioners (CNHP), NHFA, Coalition for Natural Health (CNH), and Sunshine Health Freedom Foundation (SHFF) State Coordinator. Activists are also keeping an eye on the language of licensing bills that may negatively impact health freedom.