Oregon voters going to the polls in November will have the opportunity to amend state constitutional law to assure their rights to choose what type of health professional treats them.
Ballot Measure 39 provides that no law be enacted to restrain an individual's choice of health care provider, as long as the provider is acting within scope of practice as established by law.
A quarter of a million Oregonians signed petitions to get Measure 39 on the ballot. To the petitioners, the matter is clear: the right to choose the kind of health care they desire. Pro 39ers believe in consumer choice.
Those denied chiropractic by an HMO or insurance company will no longer be denied if 39 passes. The measure prohibits any state or government board, commission or agency, or any private entities from discriminating among categories of health care providers who perform the same or similar services within their scope of practice.
The Oregon Health Care Plan (OHP) already prohibits discrimination against health care providers, but the managed care companies under contract to OHP can discriminate. If a health care is licensed by the state, insurance companies and HMOs must offer these services.
Cost controls are allowed, as long as they do not ban an entire category of provider.
Best selling author, Lendon Smith, MD, a popular columnist with DC for many years, has joined the coalition of organization supporting Measure 39. "I have become convince that using what some call 'alternative medicine' as a complement to traditional medicine would make all of us healthier, happier, and make our health care system more medically effective and cost-effective."
Measure 39 is opposed by the Oregon Medical Association, HMOs, managed care organizations and hospitals, i.e., those entities that dominate the health care market. Opponents say the costs will rise; that it will undermine the HMOs; that it will allow unproven treatments and practitioners to render services.
Pro 39ers point our that managed care organizations and hospitals will still be in control of their costs; that more types of providers will only improve competition and result in less expensive health care; that only professionals licensed by the state and working within a defined scope of practice will be providing health care.
Editor's note: The Health Care Freedom Campaign is working hard to get Measure 39 passed. They are mailing out cards to 110,000 key voters to urge them to support the ballot measure. The mailing costs alone on that venture will run $20,000. Your donations will go toward paying that postage. Your donations may be sent to:
Health Care Freedom Campaign
101 SW Main
Suite 245
Portland, OR 97204-3210
Tele: (503) 331-9881
Many relevant diagnostic signs are not performed deliberately by the examiner or by the patient at the examiner’s direction. They are observed as the patient reacts to their condition. Fortin’s finger sign, Minor’s sign, and Vanzetti’s sign are three examples of this principle.
Spearheaded by burgeoning scientific and clinical research literature, psychedelics have reached a level of media coverage and popular interest that has not been seen for over half a century. By “psychedelics,” we are referring to the unique class of substances that includes psilocybin (the active compound found in so-called “magic mushrooms”), LSD, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ayahuasca, 5-MeO-DMT, and mescaline – each of which occurs in the natural world (except for LSD, which is a semi-synthetic compound).
While working at the Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M., one of the primary care physicians stated that imaging every patient prior to receiving chiropractic was not medically necessary. It was at that point I reconsidered the need for the imaging of every patient to avoid malpractice.
