Mary Bernatas | Oppose HB1671

This bill is a dangerous attempt to force healthcare facilities to prioritize individual fringe beliefs over patient safety. Hospitals and clinics have a fundamental duty to ensure that their staff do not transmit preventable, life-threatening diseases to the vulnerable patients in their care. By prohibiting facilities from setting evidence-based safety standards for their employees, HB 1671 directly undermines the "First, Do No Harm" principle of medicine. Furthermore, threatening to withhold Medicaid payments as a "penalty" is a reckless use of state power. Medicaid is a critical lifeline for New Hampshire’s most vulnerable citizens and a major pillar of our healthcare economy. Using these funds as a political hammer to protect fringe, uneducated beliefs—at the expense of scientific evidence—is deeply irresponsible. We should not have to witness the re-emergence of preventable diseases in our hospitals before acknowledging that medical standards must be set by science, not by those who disregard it. I urge the committee to protect New Hampshire’s healthcare system and vote Inexpedient to Legislate (ITL) on HB 1671. Respectfully, Mary Bernatas