Dear [Your Elected Official],

<p>I urge you to vote NO on HB1044 in the Health Subcommittee on Wednesday.</p> <p>The Senate sponsor says that the bill is about protecting the consciences of health care providers when they don't wish to offer particular procedures and not about discriminating against groups. However, the text of the bill appears to create a backdoor for healthcare providers, hospitals, and insurance companies to discriminate at-will against protected groups by restricting patients’ access to certain preventative services, medical conditions and treatments, and healthcare insurance coverage. </p> <p>Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act currently protects against discrimination in medicine and has explicit requirements for coverage of federally recommended prevention services.  This bill could present a significant challenge for referrals and insurance coverage in certain communities if insurances do not cover certain services. This could further harm certain populations who rely on rural hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, hospice, and other programs in under-resourced communities with very few providers or specialty providers. Expensive litigation over these points is highly likely because this bill sets up a situation in which patients and providers will be caught between state and federal law.</p> <p>How will patients know which services and procedures a provider offers? There is no provision in the bill for providers to announce this. This lack of clarity opens patients to being turned away on a case-by-case basis. That brings up questions of whether conscience or the profit motive is at work.</p> <p>The Senate sponsor has talked about assisted suicide as a procedure that might be covered by the bill, but it is illegal in Tennessee. What treatments, services, and procedures that are currently legal might this bill allow providers to refuse? We need transparency about the specific intentions of the bill sponsors.</p> <p>There are just too many questions to proceed with this legislation. Thank you for considering my views.</p> <p> </p>