Newsletters > Winter 1999 > Minnesota Leads the Nation as Complementary and Alternative Health Care Feedom of Access Legislation is Introduced, by Leo Cashman

An important legislative reform, seeking to free access to alternative and complementary health care is being introduced in the Minnesota Legislature. This legislation can put an end to the type of prosecutions that have targeted alternative health practitioners in our state. The new bill, which has attracted national attention because of its broad scope and innovative approach, would center its health freedom provisions on requirements for informed consent and legal standards of harm. This would make natural health accessible to all consumers and at the same time would shelter the practitioner from unwarranted prosecution by health licensing boards.

The new approach is set forth in the Complementary and Alternative Health Care Freedom of Access bill that is being introduced. The chief authors are Rep. Lynda Boudreau (IR, Faribault) in the Minnesota House and Sen. Steven Morse (DFL, Dakota) in the Minnesota Senate. The bill differs from the legislative efforts of the past two sessions to license or register a subset of naturopaths and massage therapists. The new approach does not seek such a licensing or even a registration of practitioners. It sets up no new boards or bureaucracies. Rather it carves out a framework under which a very broad range of alternative practitioners will be available to the public. Clients would assume the risk of their decisions after being given adequate disclosure of information regarding the practitioner's qualifications, the nature and benefits of the healing modality and common risks associated with it. The scope of such an approach is broad in that it provides for consumer access to a wide range of practitioners ranging from naturopaths, homeopaths, herbalists and bodyworkers to the holistic MD's and mercury free dentists.

HOW THE PUBLIC IS PROTECTED The bill points out that in the event of client dissatisfaction, as has always been the case, the client and practitioner may seek to resolve matters with the help of mediation, engage in a civil suit, or contact local or state attorney offices regarding complaints of fraud, swindle or misrepresentation. A consumer may even file a complaint with a licensing or regulatory board, such as the Medical Board, but the Act seeks to impose a new burden of proof upon the licensing board that would bring action against an alternative practitioner. Currently, a governmental agency or board need not prove harm to a client. It need only charge the holistic dentist or MD for example, with practicing outside the prevailing standard of care for the profession—an unwritten standard of care which the board imposes on a case by case basis. Under the protective provisions of the new Act, the board would not be able to impose a sanction against a licensed practitioner unless there was no informed consent obtained from the client as required in the Act or unless the treatment method posed a greater risk of serious, direct and imminent harm than does the prevailing, accepted treatments or standard of care. Currently, as well, the board or government body may take legal action against an unlicensed practitioner for practicing medicine without a license, as in the noted cases of naturopath Helen Healy and 2 lay people. Under the provisions of the new Bill, no such actions may be brought unless the unlicensed practitioner did not abide by a standard of no harm set forth in the new bill or there was no informed consent. In the new Bill, if an action is taken against either a licensed or an unlicensed practitioner, a client's choice to delay the use of conventional medical care and to rather use a complementary and alternative treatment cannot be used in and of itself by the government agency or health board as evidence of harm to the client.

PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT NEEDED Broad-based public support is expected to be key towards the passage of this ground breaking legislation. It is hoped that because the arguments seen in previous reform efforts, such as contentious arguments over who gets to use what titles, are absent from this reform effort, that the new Complementary and Alternative Health Freedom Act can draw unified support from the broad spectrum of those who support health freedom for the consumer. One of the prime movers behind this reform, the Minnesota Natural Health Coalition Action Network, is leading the lobbying effort and seeks to rally broad public support. This new bill will allow alternative therapies to be available to the public based on their own merits and on consumer satisfaction as the people of Minnesota gain freedom to access practitioners of their choosing for their health care.