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Michigan Legislators Approve Committee a Bill Legalizing Health Care Discrimination

LANSING, MI -- Members of the Michigan Senate Committee on Health Policy held a hearing on and voted in support of Senate Bill 136 Thursday, which provides health care professionals with legal protections should they decide to discriminate against a patient or co-worker based "on religious beliefs, moral convictions, or ethical principles sincerely held by an individual or entity."

The legislation, sponsored by Republican State Senator John Moolenaar would existentially legalise discrimination in Michigan on religious or moral grounds.

Equality Michigan's Director of Policy Emily Dievendorf said in a press release after the vote;

"At a time when our Governor is working to reform and improve healthcare in Michigan, extremists within his own party are choosing to waste our money by doing the opposite and finding ways to keep people from potentially life-saving health care. 

In complete contrast with the Hippocratic Oath, Senator Moolenaar (R - Midland) is suggesting that we empower health professionals to first do harm by using a license to discriminate to turn away a patient based on any arbitrary criteria. 

Denying emergency room care to a Jewish patient care over disagreements on religious text is not what they had in mind when asking professionals to pledge to the Hippocratic Oath. This reprehensible bill must be stopped before it becomes embarrassingly clear that Michigan is a state which prefers hate over compassion."

The measure now heads to the full Senate.