The COS resolution HJR 235 passed the NC House in March, and now we expect a vote soon in the Senate. Your Senator, Eddie Settle is a key vote.
We recently spent some time with Senator Settle's Legislative Assistant, Sheila Settle, and were told he is receiving calls in opposition. We know support for the COS resolution is greater than those opposed, but unless we flood his office with supportive messages, he does not know that.
In addition, we know for a fact that opposition organizations like JBS and others are spreading lies about COS in Senator Settle's district.
Please contact Senator Settle's office by phone, email and hand written letters. Tell him who you are, thank him for his service to the state, tell him you support the COS resolution and why, and ask him to please support the resolution in the caucus and on the Senate floor.
Physicians for COS
The diagnosis is clear.
We have a growing cancer today known as the Obamacare. As a result physicians are no longer free to practice medicine.No profession feels the full force of the federal government more than physicians. The medical profession is the most highly regulated profession in the United States. The practice of medicine is controlled, taxed, and regulated to the point of being destroyed by the heavy hand of the federal government.
Physicians are told how to bill, how much to charge, and how to treat patients. They are mandated to use expensive electronic medical records. The federally enacted HIPPA (Health Information Privacy and Portability Act) makes the communication between physicians and atients burdensome, inefficient,and expensive. Every physician is required by federal mandate to register with the government to obtain an NPI (national provider identifier.) We are required by federal law to obtain and pay for a license to prescribe medication through the DEA, which is separate from our state licensure.
This heavy hand of government not only oversees the largest federal health bureaucracy ever created, but by extension reaches into every state, every city, and every small town to regulate how every licensed physician practices the art of medicine and how citizens obtain care.
The treatment is also clear.
The prescription for a cure was written into our constitution by our founders. Article V of our constitution allows for the states to call for a convention of states to limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government through the proposal of constitutional amendments. Physicians should be the strongest supporters of this brilliantly-crafted states’ rights tool placed into our constitution by our founders.
I urge my fellow American physicians to join with me in supporting an Article V Convention of States to take back control of the practice of medicine. It’s the only way that we can return the practice of medicine back to the intimate relationship between a doctor and patient without interference by the heavy hand of a distant, national government.
Jeffrey I. Barke, M.D. Family Physician Newport Beach, CA