Month: March 2021

Because of the pressure stemming from our lawsuit, the governor ended the statewide mask mandate, but left the door open for liberal-run cities to enact their own.  Now, Senator Trent Garner is attempting to permanently end mask mandates (both state and local) with SB 590.  Read it by clicking here.   It passed the Senate today with 77% of the Senate voting YES.  Next, it goes to the House Public Health Committee, where our freedom legislation frequently stalls.  

1.) These are the often problematic state reps who need to hear from you NO LATER THAN Thursday, April 1st:

Republicans Ladyman, Boyd, Coleman, Davis, Eubanks, and Wardlaw (these could go either way)

Democrats Ferguson, Magie, Allen, and Perry (almost certain NO votes)

Feel free to contact all of the House health committee, but the above are the critical votes.  Click here for the excel list.    Click here for the PDF list,

2.) Additionally, you should contact your OWN state rep, no matter who he / she is.

Tell these legislators that they should vote FOR SB 590 to end all mask mandates.  

There is no need to contact the Senators.  As usual, they are doing their job, representing us.  This bill is likely to die in the House public health committee, never receiving a floor vote, unless we convince the state reps listed above to vote YES.

Please call, text, and email – make them hear you loud and clear!

All legislative contact lists are posted under the ‘Contact Lists’ tab of our website.  Click here for contact lists.

These are the state reps who changed their March 15th YES vote on SB 301 to a NO or PRESENT on March 23rd. They need to hear from you!

Remember:

1.) The fines were unequally assessed, only targeting small businesses (no big box stores). The fine spreadsheet and individual reports are posted under the Documents tab.

2.) ADH / ABC spent many times more tax dollars “enforcing” the unconstitutional mandates than they collected in fines. (I’ll have a full story on their expenses, soon.)

3.) The directives were never approved by the legislature, so the fines themselves weren’t legal in the first place.

By Senator Dan Sullivan

Most Arkansans don’t know what they are missing when it comes to the modern delivery of health care. In 49 other states, hundreds of innovative telehealth companies are offering a wide variety of health care services through technology. This has been going on for nearly a decade now, but not in Arkansas. Changing this tragic and indefensible state of affairs should be addressed in the 2021 legislative session, and in a manner that finally puts patients’ needs first.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson issued an executive order in March 2020 that waived some of the more archaic state telehealth rules and regulations that prevented Arkansas patients from accessing care. House Bill 1063 proposes to make those changes permanent. It deserves approval and emergency enactment.

If enacted, House Bill 1063 would amend state law to allow patients to establish a relationship with a provider through the use of any appropriate technology rather than requiring an in-person visit take place first. This is especially important in a pandemic, but there are many reasons why it is always important to have this kind of access. Here are a few:

• Every county except one in Arkansas is designated as medically underserved by the federal government.
• Nearly half of Arkansans do not have a primary care physician.
• The Natural State is rural and beautiful, but that means long drives to get treatment even for minor health conditions.
• Many Arkansans are living in poverty, and cost of health care is a significant barrier to access.

If it were not for the current emergency order, the statutory and regulatory environment in Arkansas would still be denying patients access to telehealth. As policymakers, we should not let this stand.

The other critical thing that the legislature must do is ensure that the legislation they pass is not overly prescriptive in the types of technology that may be used. Different health issues may require diagnosis or treatment through varying technologies, and these decisions should be made using the medical professional’s expertise and judgment rather than a misguided state mandate.

Healthcare professionals are equipped with the knowledge and skill to utilize the appropriate technology to meet the standard of care. This technology-neutral approach is another issue that nearly every state has already adopted, after recognizing that specifying technologies in statute carries no benefit to patients and only serve to limit access.

House Bill 1063 offers Arkansas a chance to leap forward and join other states in embracing the benefits of telehealth. Telehealth can be a significant part of our strategy to address public healthcare challenges, but not if arbitrary restrictions that have no clinical evidence to support them are part of Arkansas’ laws and regulations.

Several years ago, when this issue was first being debated in the Arkansas Capitol, the legislature decided to go slow on telehealth. This approach, which proponents characterized as cautious, has always been based on the established medical community’s desire to protect their brick-and-mortar offices from what they perceived as an existential threat to their business. The underlying motives were hidden behind a façade of theoretical patient safety issues – a façade that has since crumbled under data from years of experience nationwide as well as the past year under the emergency executive order in Arkansas.

The consequence of this protectionist strategy is that Arkansas has been left far behind the rest of the nation regarding advancement in remote health care innovations. With COVID-19 as a tailwind, states all across the country have enacted even more permissive telehealth statutes. Meanwhile, Arkansas continues to ponder the question and residents continue to go without this modern way of delivering quality, affordable and accessible health care.

The forces that have held Arkansas back are still active today and may yet undermine this well-informed attempt to embrace telehealth. For the sake of the health of Arkansas, it is paramount that rational thought and years’ worth of data overcome the self-serving opposition.

The evidence is clear: Telehealth is safe. It is invaluable. And it is a vital way to expand access to care to everyone, everywhere. Arkansas included.

We are finally winning some important battles!  We have a lot of information (nine bullet points below) to share with you this weekend.  We will break it down into three segments: action requests, updates, and reminders. 

Action requested TODAY:   

1.) HB 1371: This is the school choice bill, which will allow more families access to private schools (using donated money).  This is on the agenda for Tuesday, March 16th.  We believe the vote is down to three members of the education committee: Lee Johnson (HD 75) – 479-883-6393; Stu Smith (HD 63) – 870-612-3974; Chairman Bruce Cozart (HD 24) – 501-627-3232.  Please call, text, and email these three urging their support of HB 1371.  

2.) HB 1063: This bill provides permanent access to tele-health services.  Please contact the members of the House Public Health Committee, requesting that they vote FOR HB 1063.

 Click here for the House public health Excel file.

Click here for the House public health PDF file.

Updates: 

3.) SB 254 bars ADH / ABC from issuing most mask fines.  SB 254 has passed both chambers and was delivered to the governor on Thursday.  Unless Asa vetoes (which we do not expect), it will become law this week and take effect immediately.

4.) SB 301 returns the fines to the businesses and individuals who paid them. SB 301 has now passed both health committees and the full Senate.  It is on the House agenda for Monday, where we expect a big victory.  Unless Asa vetoes (which we do not expect), it will become law in five days and become effective in 90 days.  We expect the fines to be returned sometime this summer.  If you didn’t watch the video of the vote in House Health, you must see it!  Our legislators stopped ABC Director Doralee Chandler mid-sentence, and didn’t allow the ADH bureaucrats to even speak.  It was phenomenal, and provides evidence that they are listening to us!  Watch this video starting at the 1:10:00 mark.  The fireworks take place around 1:15.  

5.) SB 379 restricts the governor’s ability to declare perpetual emergencies and forces involvement of the legislature. SB 379 has now passed both health committees and the full Senate.   It is on the House agenda for Monday, where we expect an overwhelming victory.  It will become law within five days and is effective immediately if 2/3 of the House votes YES, which we expect.

6.) HCR 1003, which would have ended the state of emergency immediately, failed this week in the House Public Health Committee.  It was not a long-term solution, because Asa could have immediately re-issued the emergency order.  Some legislators were skeptical of it because they didn’t realize that the “goodies” in the emergency order could have been retained while getting rid of the mask mandate.  In any case, this was a smaller battle, and it can be brought back up in the event Asa attempts to re-issue a new emergency later this month.  

7.) The Supreme Court hearing for our lawsuit is scheduled for April 8th.  We hope to get an up or down ruling as to whether Asa / Romero acted within the law when they restricted businesses and individuals without consulting the legislature.  The lawsuit is now fully funded thanks to the generous support of many patriots in our group.  Without our actions, the Asa / Romero regime would still have us locked down under single-branch control, subject to the latest whims of the regime.  We now have the legislature actively involved, and we are only days away from passing crucial legislation that will forever limit the governor’s power and return much of that power back to the people.   

Reminders: 

8.) You can find all legislative contact info on our website: reopenarkansas.org/contact-lists.  The contact info is sorted by chamber, party, and alphabetically.

9.) The legislators report that they are overwhelmed with e-mails.  That means your efforts are making a difference!  When you contact them, please be succinct and polite.  Write only two to four sentence emails, and include “Support [bill #]” in the subject line.

Per the attached email from DFA spokesman Scott Hardin, ABC has stopped ALL Covid-related inspections. Feel free to print this email and use it as your maskless entry ticket at any ABC licensed establishment (most stores and restaurants).

The second email is from ADH Deputy General Counsel Reginald Rogers, acknowledging that no restaurant or salon was fined in February.