LA’s No Patient Left Alone Act Passes the House - Unanimously! PLUS the scoop behind the Committee Debacle over the CDC/WHO Bill

HB291 moves on to the Senate! HB372 is dead.

April 25, 2023, House floor vote for HB291, Louisiana’s No Patient Left Alone Act

Do you see that vote?!?

We still can’t believe it! That vote speaks to the dire need for this bill - no patient should EVER be left without access to family and loved ones while hospitalized or in long-term care situations. It was a unanimous vote on the House floor, 100-0. No one was willing to vote against it. Representative Tammy Phelps (a Democrat) who was present and asked a question of the bill author, Representative Chuck Owen, voted absent instead of nay. Phelps asked if this bill would allow visitors outside of visiting hours and Owen responded that the designated essential caregiver would have 24 hour access to their loved one because “life and death does not happen between 9:00am-4:00pm.” Perfect answer. Not sure why Phelps seemingly has an issue with this but nevertheless, the bill passed with immense support!

Thank you so much for the calls and emails to the committee members and your state rep! Over 6,400 emails were sent to committee members - THANK YOU!!!

Now it moves to the Senate - we will let you know as soon as it is assigned a hearing date. So be on the lookout for that call to action!

Now for the bad news:

If you weren’t in the committee room when this bill was heard, you missed quite the show!

The entire event is being reviewed by the Speaker of the House, Clay Schexnayder, to determine if the bill should be heard again - it’s that significant. Those in attendance were told by Chairman Larry Bagley that the bill had support and would pass, so those in attendance who had filled out a green card and planned to speak waived their time. THEN committee member Representative Joseph Stagni objected and requested for Louisiana Department of Health to come to the table to answer a question. The LDH representative rambled on about the impact of the bill on the department not realizing the entire bill had been substituted with an amendment which basically made her entire argument moot. We would argue it was moot to begin with. Ask Florida how much it has cost them to reject CDC and WHO guidance on these issues. But time passed as she rambled and committee members in support left or were called away and when the vote actually occurred, there were too many Democrats in the room. Never a good thing in House Health and Welfare. Or Senate Health and Welfare. Or any committee for that matter. The bill died with a vote of 7 nays-4 yays.

But what bill died? Let’s discuss.

What was the bill intended to do?

In its original drafting, which Jill (our Co-Director) provided Rep. Kathy Edmonston, the bill would not allow any recommendations from the CDC or WHO to be used as justification for mask, vaccine, or medical testing requirements, which is exactly what happened in Louisiana during the pandemic. The Louisiana Department of Health and the Louisiana Department of Education rubber stamped recommendations from those agencies, no questions asked, and without any further justification. For example, when we requested the evidence of safety for the covid mitigation policies implemented in schools in 2020, the Executive Counsel for LDOE, Joan Hunt, referred me to the CDC for an answer to that question. Our response was that the CDC does not work for the citizens of this state. On the other hand, LDOE does and it has a fiduciary duty to ensure that the policies implemented are necessary and safe. They did not do that. We NEVER received ANY evidence of safety for ANY of the mitigation policies implemented for Covid-19.

What does the bill do now with the amendment?

The amendment replaced the entire bill completely changing the intent, scope, and effect. It now codifies the 10th amendment of the U.S. Constitution and reiterates that the federal government can not compel the state to implement its policies. Nothing in the current language of the amended bill changes how things are, or restricts the state from implementing CDC or WHO guidance without their own justification, which is exactly the way it was during the pandemic.

In other words, this version of the bill accomplishes nothing.

What about public comment? (or lack thereof)

Yes, what happened in committee was wrong. Whether it was intended or planned, we don’t know and honestly, don’t think that conjecture is helpful or useful. We do know some of the members that stepped out are strong allies. As mentioned earlier, when this bill was heard, Bagley said it had support and would pass out of committee. Of course it had support - with the amendment, it does nothing to restrict the state and simply codifies the 10th amendment. The Democrats and the two Republicans that voted against it, Stagni and McMahen, look even more ridiculous - why were they opposed to a bill that does nothing more than basically restate the 10th amendment in state statute? Stagni, a “Republican” has a loooong history of voting like a democrat and opposing most of our health freedom/parental rights/informed consent bills. He needs to go.

Bottom line: public comment should happen for this bill because circumstances disallowed people from their opportunity to speak, which is required by law.

But we don’t see the point or value in speaking for a bill that changes nothing and accomplishes nothing.

This amended bill is not the one we provided or asked you to support when we sent out the calls to action. It has been completely scrapped and replaced. And just know we’ve always had and always will have 10th amendment protections, whether it’s codified in statute or not. We will continue to work on this so that we can have a strong bill to propose next year. We’re not giving up!

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