Virginians For Health Freedom
HB345 Information
Here is the IMPORTANT information you need when contacting these Delegates about HB345:
1.
The BEST way to contact these representatives is Face-to-Face!! NOTHING has a Greater impact than them seeing and speaking
The BEST way to contact these representatives is Face-to-Face!! NOTHING has a Greater impact than them seeing and speaking with you directly!! Taking a few people with you is even better.
2.Phone Calls are second best. Communicating your opinion on this bill holds a lot of weight.
Phone Calls are second best. Communicating your opinion on this bill holds a lot of weight.3.Letters and Faxes are the next effective method. Fax the individual number for each delegate!
Letters and Faxes are the next effective method. Fax the individual number for each delegate!4.Lastly emails.
Lastly emails.Be organized, have your talking points (some are provided on this website) written down as to what you want to say and how to say it.
Be Courteous and Respectful when relaying your message!
When mailing letters, address them to the Delegate first, then use the General Assembly’s address provided below.
A form petition has been prepared for you to use. Fill in the form behind the colons (:). Once you are satisfied with what you have written, highlight the entire petition then right click and hit 'copy'. Then open the Health, Welfare and Institution Member from the right menu. Click on EACH email address (one at a time) and when the email opens, click 'paste'. {Some of you may need to hold the 'ctrl' button down on your computers keyboard while clicking on the delegates email address.} This puts your petition in the body of the email. Remember...This must be done with EACH delegate email address!!!
For those of you that like to write your own comments to the delegates; here are some factors to consider. Countless number of jobs will be removed from Virginia and the tax base loss will be unrecoverable! Losing jobs means more State Funded unemployment and food stamps. Lack of income also means home mortages may not be paid resulting in more people losing their homes through possible foreclosures! Is this the added burden we want to add in Virginia who is already feeling the crunch of the economic downfall??!! Tell the delegates to Vote NO on HB345 Today!!!!!
Online Petition
Outcomes of the House Bills
HB543 Licensure of Massage Therapist
The Lobbyists for the Massage Therapists worked with us to include language to their bill that protects unlicensed practitioners from specific activities that may be common to both Massage Therapists and Natural Health practitioners. Result: this bill passed the sub-committee and should go on through the full Health, Education and Institutions Committee Thursday and on to the Senate without further significant debate. We appreciate that they worked with us and we were able to support this bill going forward. We will continue to keep an eye on this bill as it moves forward!
HB345 Licensure of Dietitians and Nutritionists
This bill drew A LOT of controversy. Your phone calls, faxes and emails helped make our opposition to this bill possible. THANK YOU MEMBERS (and non-members). We were outnumbered at the sub-committee meeting by proponents of the bill. A motion to pass the bill over until 2013 was made but failed. They decided to put the bill on the table and go through it line-by-line. Long story short, after an intense, nearly 3 hour discussion of the pros and cons on this bill, the motion was brought again to pass the bill over until 2013. The vote this time was 6 to 1. So this bill was finally PASSED OVER UNTIL 2013! That means this bill will be back next year!
Here is the link for you to see the action taken. (http://dela.house.virginia.gov/chamber.nsf/24565835824a96ec8525753e000dd8e4/fb189ef22d3fe4148525799700032471?OpenDocument).
We did make some strong allies this session though some Delegates still are not hearing our message. We also offered language for this bill to maintain protection for freedom of speech about food, diet and supplements for every Virginian from consumer to unlicensed practitioner, but our suggestions were not as well received by their Lobbyist. Path forward: This means that HB345 will be back next year. We all need to continue to stand up for our rights and to maintain our freedom of speech and health freedom. Please ask everyone you know to join Virginians For Health Freedom and make your voices heard!!
We would like to voice a HUGE THANK YOU to all of you that helped with these bills; we couldn’t have done this without your support!!
Our exemption is in Article 5 section D (iii).
